'Dust Bowl' Lands Jim Carrey

Posted Friday, November 16, 2001 at 11:43 AM Central

by John Couture

Jim Carrey has been tapped to star in Dust Bowl, a true story based on the plight of migrant workers in 1939. Carrey is set to play Leo Hart, a high school superintendent who goes to extreme measures to insure that the uneducated children of the migrant workers received proper schooling.

The book, upon which the movie is based, is being compared favorably to John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes Of Wrath," which covers one family's journey from Oklahoma to California to escape the devastating dust storms. As you might recall, Henry Fonda made a name for himself in a similar role.