# Bound for Glory (1976 film)
**Bound for Glory** is a 1976 American biographical film directed by [Hal Ashby](https://www.edgepedia.org/hal-ashby) about the folk singer [Woody Guthrie](https://www.edgepedia.org/woody-guthrie), covering his journey from the Texas Dust Bowl to California during the early years of the [Great Depression](https://www.edgepedia.org/great-depression). David Carradine plays Guthrie, with Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon, and Randy Quaid in supporting roles. Robert Getchell wrote the screenplay from Guthrie's 1943 autobiography of the same title, and the film was produced by Robert F. Blumofe and Harold Leventhal for United Artists.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bound_for_glory)
The film is best known for two things: it was the first feature to use the [Steadicam](https://www.edgepedia.org/steadicam), the camera stabilizer newly invented by [Garrett Brown](https://www.edgepedia.org/garrett-brown), and its cinematography by Haskell Wexler won the [Academy Award for Best Cinematography](https://www.edgepedia.org/academy-award-for-best-cinematography).[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/haskell-wexler-10-key-films-from-master-cinematographer) It received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won two.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/awards/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Hal Ashby; screenplay by Robert Getchell, based on Woody Guthrie's 1943 autobiography[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) |
| Release | New York opening 5 December 1976; Los Angeles opening 9 December 1976; 147 minutes, rated PG[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) |
| Lead cast | David Carradine (Woody Guthrie), Ronny Cox (Ozark Bule), Melinda Dillon (Mary/Memphis Sue), Randy Quaid (Luther Johnson)[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33862/bound-for-glory) |
| Cinematography | Haskell Wexler; first feature use of Garrett Brown's Steadicam; Academy Award for Best Cinematography[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/haskell-wexler-10-key-films-from-master-cinematographer) |
| Academy Awards | Six nominations including Best Picture; two wins, Cinematography and Music (Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score)[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/awards/) |
| Production | Filmed 19 August 1975 to 4 January 1976 in Stockton, Bakersfield, and Los Angeles, California; budget estimated close to $10 million[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) |
| Critical scores | 80% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (25 reviews); Metascore 70 from 10 reviews[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bound_for_glory) • [6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/criticreviews) |
## Spoilers
### Story and approach
An introductory title card sets the film in "Pampa, Texas, July, 1936," where Guthrie sits at a gas station playing guitar as other men talk about leaving for California or the Texas Gulf Coast. The story follows him as a restless sign painter who joins the westward migration, rides freight trains, works among migrant laborers, and begins a radio career, meeting the singer and union agitator Ozark Bule ([Ronny Cox](https://www.edgepedia.org/ronny-cox)) and finding a populist political voice. It ends with him leaving Los Angeles for New York.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) • [7](https://repository.stu.edu/ulma/va/3005/1976/12-31-1976.pdf) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bound_for_glory)
The portrait is deliberately unflattering in places. The film depicts Guthrie walking out on his wife Mary and their two small children, and presents him as more attached to "the people" in the abstract than to the individuals around him. An epilogue states that he continued traveling and giving his music to everyone he met, that he was hospitalized in 1954 with [Huntington's disease](https://www.edgepedia.org/huntingtons-disease), a genetic disorder, and that he died on October 3, 1967.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) • [7](https://repository.stu.edu/ulma/va/3005/1976/12-31-1976.pdf)
[Melinda Dillon](https://www.edgepedia.org/melinda-dillon) plays both Mary and, in adjacent scenes, Woody's radio singing partner Memphis Sue. The soundtrack is built from Guthrie's own songs, including "Hard Travelin'", "I Ain't Got No Home", "Do Re Mi", and "This Land Is Your Land", performed by Carradine; during the end credits a recording of the real Guthrie is edited into a medley of other artists, with recorded performances credited to Odetta, the Weavers, Will Geer, Country Joe McDonald, Arlo Guthrie, and [Judy Collins](https://www.edgepedia.org/judy-collins).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) • [8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/soundtrack/)
## Production
The project had circulated in Hollywood for years. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who had known Guthrie from their merchant seamen days, was at one point a candidate to direct and met with Guthrie's widow, [Pete Seeger](https://www.edgepedia.org/pete-seeger), and [Bob Dylan](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-dylan) while researching it; he withdrew over an unsatisfactory script and returned only when Ashby agreed to direct.[5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33862/bound-for-glory)
**Casting.** Producer Harold Leventhal considered actors and singers including [Art Garfunkel](https://www.edgepedia.org/art-garfunkel), Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, James Taylor, and [Tim Buckley](https://www.edgepedia.org/tim-buckley), along with [Dustin Hoffman](https://www.edgepedia.org/dustin-hoffman), Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Robert De Niro. Bob Dylan was sent the script, turned down the role, and offered to direct instead. Carradine, then known mainly for the television series *Kung Fu*, was initially rejected because at six feet he was considered too tall to play the diminutive Guthrie; Leventhal wanted a short actor to accentuate Guthrie as a symbol of "the little man." Carradine won the part after a second audition.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) • [5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33862/bound-for-glory)
**Shooting.** Principal photography began on August 19, 1975 in Stockton, California, with a schedule of six weeks there, three weeks in Bakersfield, and five weeks in Los Angeles, ending January 4, 1976, about a month over schedule. Production designer Michael Haller scouted locations in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico but could not find dust-bowl terrain, because the land had changed since the Depression, so the film was shot in California with the cooperation of the Bureau of Land Management's Bakersfield District Office. Some scenes required coordinating 900 extras and 125 crew members.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY) • [5](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33862/bound-for-glory)
**Editing.** Ashby cut the film from 147 minutes to 135 minutes by removing or shortening four scenes; United Artists executives asked him to restore the footage, which included part of the opening gas-station sequence and scenes in which Guthrie saves a woman dying of thirst, talks with Luther Johnson in a radio station, and finds his wife has abandoned their Los Angeles home.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY)
## The Steadicam and the cinematography
Bound for Glory was the first feature shot with the Steadicam, a camera-stabilizing mount invented and operated by Garrett Brown. Wexler had contacted Brown in 1974 to shoot a Keds commercial using what was then called the "Brown Stabilizer," and devised the film's signature shot for him: Brown films from a crane overlooking a migrant camp, is lowered, dismounts, and tracks Guthrie walking among the inhabitants, following him into a crowd of migrants looking for work. It was Brown's first feature film.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/haskell-wexler-10-key-films-from-master-cinematographer) • [9](https://www.motionpictures.org/2014/07/garrett-brown-an-interview-with-a-visionary-part-i/)
Wexler, who had already won an Oscar for *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?*, won his second for this film. To suit the Dust Bowl setting he shot in brownish hues that resemble sepia photographs. Roger Ebert, the film critic of the *Chicago Sun-Times* and winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, called it the most visually accomplished film since *Barry Lyndon* and wrote that Ashby and Wexler recreated the Depression years so faithfully that the movie becomes a historical document.[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/haskell-wexler-10-key-films-from-master-cinematographer) • [10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bound-for-glory-1977) • [11](https://time.com/4161920/haskell-wexler-cinematographer/)
## Reception and awards
The film opened in New York on December 5, 1976 and in Los Angeles three days later. On February 17, 1977 it opened at 107 theaters in Guthrie's home state of Oklahoma as part of a governor-proclaimed "Woody Guthrie Week," with Carradine, Leventhal, and Guthrie's widow Marjorie Guthrie attending a premiere at the Southpark Theatre in Oklahoma City.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY)
At the Academy Awards it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Score, winning the last two categories, the music award going to Leonard Rosenman for his adaptation of Guthrie's songs. It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes and for Golden Globes for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Actor (Carradine), and Best Acting Debut (Dillon), and it won Best Cinematography awards from the Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/awards/) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY)
Critics praised the film's look nearly unanimously while dividing over its pace. Pauline Kael of *The New Yorker* called it "an absorbing and impressive piece of work"; Variety called it "outstanding biographical cinema." The recurring criticism, voiced by Ebert and by Gary Arnold of *The Washington Post*, was that the film moves slowly and smooths away Guthrie's humor and irreverence, drifting into reverie and hero worship; Time Out called it "overlong, sentimental and lifeless." The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus credits Wexler's cinematography and Guthrie's music with bringing the Dust Bowl era to authentic life.[6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/criticreviews) • [10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bound-for-glory-1977) • [12](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/02/16/bound-for-sentimental-glory/3cb8cd4f-f1fd-480f-b30e-006d39e0c83f/) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bound_for_glory)
## Legacy
The film introduced Guthrie to a far broader audience than his music alone had reached, and its Steadicam shot changed how moving-camera sequences could be made; the Society of Camera Operators gave Garrett Brown a Historical Shot award for it in 1998. A new feature adaptation of Guthrie's autobiography, described as distinct from the 1976 film, completed principal photography in 2025.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/awards/) • [13](https://www.productionlist.com/production/bound-for-glory)
## References
1. [Bound for Glory (1976), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55863-BOUND-FOR-GLORY)
2. [Bound for Glory, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bound_for_glory)
3. [Haskell Wexler: 10 key films from a master cinematographer, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/haskell-wexler-10-key-films-from-master-cinematographer)
4. [Bound for Glory (1976) Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/awards/)
5. [Bound for Glory, Turner Classic Movies article by Jeff Stafford](https://www.tcm.com/articles/33862/bound-for-glory)
6. [Bound for Glory (1976) Metacritic reviews, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/criticreviews)
7. [The Voice (Miami), December 31, 1976, National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures review](https://repository.stu.edu/ulma/va/3005/1976/12-31-1976.pdf)
8. [Bound for Glory (1976) Soundtracks, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074235/soundtrack/)
9. [Garrett Brown: An Interview With a Visionary, Part I, The Credits](https://www.motionpictures.org/2014/07/garrett-brown-an-interview-with-a-visionary-part-i/)
10. [Bound for Glory movie review, Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, March 9, 1977](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bound-for-glory-1977)
11. [Remembering Haskell Wexler, Time](https://time.com/4161920/haskell-wexler-cinematographer/)
12. [Bound for Sentimental Glory, Gary Arnold, The Washington Post, February 16, 1977](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/02/16/bound-for-sentimental-glory/3cb8cd4f-f1fd-480f-b30e-006d39e0c83f/)
13. [Bound for Glory Production List, Film & Television Industry Alliance](https://www.productionlist.com/production/bound-for-glory)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1970s › Released 1975 to 1979*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license