The Road Back (1937)
June 1, 1937Release Date
The Road Back (1937)
June 1, 1937Release Date
Plot.
Where to Watch.
This Movie Is About.
Cast & Crew.
John 'Dusty' King
Ernst
Richard Cromwell
Ludwig
Slim Summerville
Tjaden
Andy Devine
Willy
Barbara Read
Lucy
Louise Fazenda
Angelina
Noah Beery Jr.
Wessling
Maurice Murphy
Albert
John Emery
Captain Von Hagen
Lionel Atwill
Prosecutor
Etienne Girardot
Mayor
James Whale
Director
Henry Hunter
Bethke
Charles Kenyon
Writer
Larry J. Blake
Weil (as Larry Blake)
Erich Maria Remarque
Writer
Gene Garrick
Giesicke
R.C. Sherriff
Writer
Marilyn Harris
Maria - Ernst's Sister
Jean Rouverol
Elsa
Edmund Grainger
Producer
Spring Byington
Ernst's Mother
Dimitri Tiomkin
Composer
Frank Reicher
Ernst's Father
Media.
Details.
Wiki.
The Road Back is a 1937 American historical drama war film directed by James Whale, starring John King, Richard Cromwell, and Slim Summerville with a supporting cast featuring Andy Devine, Louise Fazenda, Noah Beery Jr., Lionel Atwill, Spring Byington, Al Shean, and an uncredited Dwight Frye. The screenplay is by Charles Kenyon and R. C. Sherriff from the 1931 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque. Combining a strong anti-war message with prescient warnings about the rising dangers of the dictatorship of Nazi Germany, it was intended to be a powerful and controversial picture, and Universal entrusted it to their finest director, James Whale.The novel on which the film is based was banned by Nazi Germany. When the film was made, Universal Pictures was threatened with a boycott of all their films by the German government unless the anti-Nazi sentiments in the script were watered down. Carl Laemmle and his son, Carl Laemmle, Jr., the former heads of Universal, had recently been ousted by a corporate takeover. The new studio heads, fearing financial loss, caved in to Nazi pressure and the film was partially reshot with another director, and the remainder extensively re-edited, leaving it a pale shadow of Whale's original intentions. To the director's further displeasure, writer Charles Kenyon was ordered to interject the script with comedy scenes between Andy Devine and Slim Summerville, which Whale found unsuitable. Disgusted with the studio's cowardice under its new management, Whale left Universal after completing Wives Under Suspicion, an unsuccessful remake of his own The Kiss Before the Mirror. He returned two years later to direct Green Hell, but never made another film for Universal after that.