The Road Back (1937)
- Directed by
- James Whale
- Genre
- drama film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 1h 40m
- Rating
- 6.7 of 10 from 9 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A group of German soldiers return home after World War I and struggle to adjust to civilian life. Their experiences in the war and the changing political climate in Germany make their homecoming difficult and disillusioning.
anti-warmelancholiccautionarysomberearnestatmosphericdatedpoignant
What happens
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 its 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. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
Men Without a Fatherland (1937)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
La Grande Illusion (1937)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Farewell Again (1937)
That's My Story (1937)
Patriots (1937)
L'Île des veuves (1937)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.