The film""s screenplay by first-timers David Newman and Robert Benton (both editors atEsquirewho had never written a screenplay) - a composite image of many early 20th century outlaws, was loosely based on the historical accounts of two 1930s Depression-era, social misfit bandits who terrorized the Midwest.In a sterile laboratory, he capsule was opened to reveal a white-clothed body cryogenically ""frozen"" (with liquid nitrogen), whose feet, hands and face were wrapped in cheap aluminum tin-foil."As he descends the stairs, she pursues him and asks about his screenwriting: "Are you or aren""t you?" He replies: "That""s what it says on my Guild card," and then explains about his last script and how hazardous it is to be a screenwriter, in a day and age when Hollywood requires hack work:The last one I wrote was about Okies in the Dust Bowl.On the screen, the film honestly and realistically recreates the socio-economic impact of the Great Depression and a mid-30s drought upon one representative family - the Joads.He then learned that she was being filmed by a movie crew, that the gun was made of rubber, and that he had just ruined the scene.