Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life… Hopefully.

Set in America’s Colonial period, John Ford’s adventure tale follows Gilbert (Henry Fonda) and Lana Martin (Claudette Colbert) as they try to survive the rugged frontier. After their settlement is repeatedly attacked by Indians, the couple is taken in by a spinster (Edna May Oliver). Lana bears a son, while Gilbert heads off to fight the Indians and the British. He returns, wounded, to find his family once again under attack by the Indians.