The Road Back (film)
| The Road Back | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | James Whale |
| Produced by | Edmund Grainger |
| Written by | Erich Maria Remarque (novel) |
| Screenplay by | Charles Kenyon R. C. Sherriff |
| Starring |
John King Richard Cromwell Slim Summerville |
| Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
| Cinematography |
John J. Mescall George Robinson |
| Edited by |
Ted J. Kent Charles Maynard |
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Production
company |
James Whale Productions
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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100 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Road Back is a 1937 American drama war film directed by James Whale starring John King, Richard Cromwell and Slim Summerville. The screenplay is by Charles Kenyon and R. C. Sherriff from the eponymous novel by Erich Maria Remarque. Combining a strong anti-war message with prescient warnings about the dangers of the rising Nazi regime, 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 during Nazi rule. 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 German 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.
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