Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

As an avid movie aficionado and collector of Hollywood's Golden Years, who has little time for today's processed canned product, I rarely view anything made after 1955.But I thought that Cannery Row would be couple hours of escape with characters that lived simply in an earthier time and place.The opening, with the seagulls at evensong and the bell buoys swaying in the swell, with the fatherly voice narrating augured well.Then the two main protagonists were introduced to us. We had two Hollywood Idols of their day trying to act, or should I say emote, as two losers in a shanty town. That was bad enough, but I followed them into some elaborate expensive Emporium Brothel that was out of Paris of the 1890's with a staff of hookers that outnumbered the towns residents.I couldn't take any more, and at this point I gave up and canned the movie from my collection.I mean, Hunk Nick Nolte in his prime as an eccentric would be marine biologist and reigning beauty queen of the day Deborah Winger as a "drifter"?I am not even related to the Hemingways, but I wanted to sue Hollywood, too :)Take away the references to Hemingway and his book title and you have just another churned out, eminently forgetful, but expensively made TV pilot.

A lot of reviewers rightfully state this movie is not like the book. The storyline is actually based on Steinbeck's lesser known "sequel" to Cannery Row, a book titled "Sweet Thursday." It is a great read if you liked Cannery Row. I would encourage anyone to read "Sweet Thursday" and then re-watch this film. It is still not the best, but better knowing the source of the screenplay. That being said, just watch and enjoy! Well I guess IMDb needs more lines to validate this review, not sure why ten lines is a minimum requirement but that's cool. So, I have two lines to go. Okay, now one line. There is so much one can write about a movie that is admittedly unremarkable, but entertaining.

This film has become one of my all-time favourite feel-good movies. Young Nolte and Winger have chemistry, the supporting cast is perfect, the music is perfect, John Huston's narration is perfect, the story is sweet and funny and poignant, and there's tons of atmosphere. I never saw its original theatrical release, which is a shame as I would have loved to have seen it on the big screen. There's enough of Steinbeck's wonderful short novel in the transfer to justify sharing the title, but the book was perhaps funnier and had less romance, and the movie has a couple of interesting new plot detours that work very well with Steinbeck's original themes. Highly recommended.

The title refers to the fishing area of Monterey, California, known as Cannery Row from the large number of canning factories situated there, but these are the depression years of the 1930s; the fishing industry has been badly hit and the canneries are empty and derelict. Although the film is based upon the writings of John Steinbeck, author of "The Grapes of Wrath", this is not a social-realist study of working-class poverty but a romantic comedy about the relationship between Doc, a marine biologist, and Suzy, a prostitute. Suzy does not appear in Steinbeck's book "Cannery Row", but the film is based both upon that novel and its sequel "Sweet Thursday".Both main characters have complicated life histories. Doc was originally a professional baseball player, but quit the sport after an opponent was hit and seriously injured by a ball thrown by him. He has taken up a scientific career despite having no formal academic qualifications; "Doc" is nickname bestowed on him by the people of the town. Suzy is an unemployed drifter who has drifted into prostitution almost by accident. She applies for a job as a waitress at the so-called Bear Flag Restaurant, and does not withdraw her application even when she is told that the establishment is in fact a brothel rather than a restaurant in the strict sense of the world. Their romance is aided and abetted by the down-and-outs of Cannery Row and the other girls of the Bear Flag under the leadership of their madam, the oddly-named Fauna. (Well, if girls can be called Flora, why not Fauna?) Odd names are something of a feature of the film; "Joseph and Mary" refers to a single individual (male) rather than two separate people, and another male character has the distinctly feminine name of Hazel.I would not agree with the reviewer who stated that this is among the best film adaptations of Steinbeck's novels. Steinbeck's writing has inspired some excellent films, most notably John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath" and Elia Kazan's "East of Eden" with James Dean, but also "The Moon is Down", Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" and the 1992 version of "Of Mice and Men". (I have not seen the 1939 version of that story). "Cannery Row", however, is not quite in the same class, although it certainly has some virtues. It is well photographed- director David S Ward succeeds in making a derelict industrial area look attractive, even at times beautiful. There is a melancholy jazz score in keeping with the mood of the film and its period setting. There a number of amusing scenes such as the great frog hunt (Doc, who needs frogs for his research, has offered the boys a bounty for each one they catch) and the one where Fauna and his fellow bums try to persuade the simple-minded Hazel that he has been chosen by destiny to be the President of the United States. (He is horrified by the idea- "A thing like this could ruin my whole life!") Nick Nolte is good as Doc, but I was less impressed by Debra Winger as Suzy. Winger was a last-minute replacement for Raquel Welch, who was sacked from the film without notice and without any good reason being given. She successfully sued the producers for breach of contract, but I am not sure that Raquel would have been the right choice for the role. Any girl who goes into a job interview hoping to become a waitress and who leaves it having become a hooker, without caring, is clearly in desperate straits, not far from rock bottom. Raquel Welch, still stunningly beautiful in her early forties, might have made Suzy too glamorous. Debra Winger avoided that trap, but at times seemed too feisty and strong-willed to persuade me that this was a woman who had plumbed the depths of desperation.Steinbeck's portrayals of poverty can be grim, especially in "The Grapes of Wrath", but "Cannery Row" is among his lighter works, and the film is surprisingly cheerful in tone when one considers that it is set in a depression-hit industrial wasteland and that its characters are mostly bums and hookers. This is a world where even dereliction has its own beauty, where every hooker is a tart with a heart of gold (to use a well-worn cliché) and the bums are all lovable rogues. (In some cases their lovability is more to the fore than their roguishness). The result is a rather sanitised, sentimentalised account of the Great Depression, but it generally makes for an amiable and watchable romantic comedy. 6/10