A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1945 film, the first film directed by Greek-American director Elia Kazan, starring James Dunn, Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Garner. The film is based on an American novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith first published in 1943. It relates the coming-of-age story of its main character, Francie Nolan, against a backdrop of tenement life in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, in the early 20th century. A 1974 made-for-television film A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, starring Cliff Robertson, Diane Baker, Pamelyn Ferdin and James Olson, was adapted from the 1945 screenplay by Tess Slesinger.