An astounding number of people here went off half crazed that this story didn't match the book. The joke is on them. Continue....I saw this movie nearly 30 years ago and thought it was terrific and that the critics were abysmally wrong about it. Having found it again, and streaming, no less, I decided to treat myself and a friend. As I was waiting for the friend to arrive, I took the time to look up "Cannery Row" on both IMDb.com and Wikipedia. I found out that there was a sequel to Cannery Row, called "Sweet Thursday." It being available for Kindle, I bought it and started reading it."Sweet Thursday" begins at the beginning of this movie. Same scenes, same characterizations, same development. This movie is about Sweet Thursday, not Cannery Row, per se. This movie having been out there for 32 years now, that information should be readily available to everyone.Blame it on John Huston for putting the more well-known name on the movie - but at the same time, the story standing on its own is a really lovable movie. Yes, he gave them more fodder for the "OH.MY.GOD. The script wasn't faithful to the book at all!!!!" brain-dead complaints.Thus you can tell when reviewers are ill-informed. In this case, they all went in expecting one story and got the other - and they (the ones from the last few years, at least) could have known that, if they'd merely looked it up. But those same people go into a movie judging it not on its own merits, but how they expected it to look and play out. In other words, they weren't judging it based on its own merit, but on their expectations. And HOW is that a fair review???Of course. It isn't.This movie has DELIGHTFUL characters - several of them. This movie has a "Boy meets girl" plot. This movie has TERRIFIC atmospheric music. This movie has FABULOUS bemused narration by John Huston. If those aren't enough for people, all of you reading this can just write them off as numb skulls or pompous twits.Huston's narration is some of the best EVER in Hollywood history, right here in this little gem of a movie. The only movie I can compare it to is the great live-action cartoon "Popeye," the one with Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall (1980). It is the same level of not-quite-reality, with a similar sort of semi-cartoon village, even - Huston's Monterey and Popeye's Sweethaven. (In looking that up, it has a much WORSE rating on IMDb. Which is amazing and unbelievable. EVERY single person I've ever talked about "Popeye" has expressed nothing but awe and amazement at how great it was. There must have been a lot of idiot reviewers for that, too.)How anyone thinks that a better movie could have been made here is truly mind-boggling.I give it 9 stars, and I thought about 10.

I was incredibly disappointed this was not much better. Perhaps I was misled by the inflated rating on this site. This was a jumbled up movie that never found its soul or covered some of the more memorable portions of the book. Why weren't there ANY scenes that took place in a bar? Everything looked staged and since there was minimal character development ultimately the characters were turned into caricatures. Steinbeck would've cringed while rolling over in his grave. It was very slow to start and painful to finish. And the score was atrocious - abrupt shifts to Vivaldi after ragtime? Come on! Now Vivaldi is rolling over in HIS grave. Reread the book but pass on this movie.

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

I have watched this movie numerous times and have noted or heard something new each time. It has been several years since I last viewed it and according to a friend of mine I have been trying to recall the movie's name for over 8 months. He told me about this website so I could obtain the movie title again. This movie brought to the surface feelings of hopefulness and reminders of the priorities in life. I enjoyed the performances of the actors and and believe that the cast contributed much to the impact of the movie. Mentally I think of the movie as more closely resembling a theatrical performance than a theater movie. I am not one who will watch a movie over and over usually. I had a copy but it was lost or destroyed several years back. This movie is one that I intend to try to obtain another copy of for myself so I can view it every time I get the urge.