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Bookmark this pageJourney's End (1930)
Director: James Whale
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Whale's first film, marred by some strangulated performances, is fascinating primarily as a record of his stage production of RC Sherriff's enormously successful play. The passionate sincerity of Sherriff's lament for the death of idealism in the mud of World War I still comes across with intermittent power, but is undercut by textual tampering. Though the structure of the play is respected, with opening-out limited to a prologue and brief punctuating scenes in no man's land, the speeches have all been pruned. As a result, the curiously plangent rhythms of the text (which still make it a masterpiece on stage today) are lost, with the meticulously built-up tension - in which you can almost hear the playing fields of Eton in the background as youthful veterans of the trenches mask their fear so as to live up to the hero worship of even younger schoolfellows - frittered away much of the time into an exchange of banalities.Author: TM
User reviews of this film
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- vic said...
- Posted on Nov 17 2010 12:27 I am desperate for a copy of RC Sherriffs journeys end can any one help PLEASE
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Cast & crew
Director: James Whale
Producer: George Pearson
Cast: Colin Clive, Ian MacLaren, David Manners, Billy Bevan, Anthony Bushell, Robert Adair full cast
Genre(s): War
Duration: 120 mins
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