Details
Movie Description
Director James Whale's first film, JOURNEY'S END, is based on R.C. Sherriff's popular antiwar play. Tensions run high when a new officer, Second Lieutenant Raleigh (David Manners), joins Captain Stanhope's (Colin Clive) company behind British lines in France in 1918. The two men knew each other at school, but after three years on the front, Stanhope is a changed man. On the eve of a big German attack, Lieutenant Osborn (Ian Maclaren) desperately tries to keep Stanhope from cracking. Featuring superb performances, Whale's film is a heartfelt portrait of the special relationships soldiers form during war.
Synopsis
James Whale's first film joins a host of poignant WWI stories receiving the Hollywood treatment in the 1920s and early 1930s (ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, WHAT PRICE GLORY?), including one he codirected (HELL'S ANGELS). In the trenches behind British lines at St. Quentin, France, a group of officers awaits an upcoming German attack. Paternal schoolmaster Lieutenant "Uncle" Osborn (Ian Maclaren) greets a green new officer, Raleigh (David Manners), who says he already knows Captain Stanhope (Colin Clive), the company's commander. Stanhope and Raleigh's sister are in love, but after years on the front, Stanhope has become a brusque, embittered drunk who tries to break the strain of war with whiskey. Stanhope is enraged to find Raleigh among his officers, paranoid that the young recruit is negatively judging him. Tensions mount in the close quarters of the officers' bunker, relieved only by jovial Lieutenant Trotter's (Billy Bevan) joking about the horrible food and talk of "rugger" and home. Soon some of the officers must go on a prebattle raid, and not all will return. A realistic tale of the casualties resulting from war (emotional and physical), the film shows the singular bond between men who fight and die together.
Film Notes
Original release date: April 9, 1930.
R.C. Sherriff, who wrote the play JOURNEY’S END, later collaborated on the screenplays for two other Whale films, THE OLD DARK HOUSE and THE INVISIBLE MAN.
James Whale was commissioned as a second lieutenant to fight in France in 1916 and became a German prisoner of war.
James Whale was the initial director for the play JOURNEY’S END in 1929 in London’s West End. The production first starred Laurence Olivier as Stanhope, and later Colin Clive, who would reprise his role in the film version.
Colin Clive (Captain Stanhope) went on to play Dr. Henry Frankenstein in Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
Joseph Moncure March, who wrote the screenplay for JOURNEY’S END, was famous for writing the 1928 rhyming verse cult novel THE WILD PARTY.
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