The Road to Yesterday
About The Road to Yesterday
Malena Paulton is cold to her husband Kenneth and afraid of the way he looks. He leaves for Chicago to have the defect treated. She follows. Their train wrecks on the plains. In the wreck their minds go back to an earlier life in which he was a knight and she a gypsy about to be burned. He saves her from the wreck. They reconcile.
Cast & crew
More about The Road to Yesterday
Cecil B. DeMille's first release from DeMille Pictures Corporation, distributed by Producers Distributing Corporation. Beulah Marie Dix and Jeanie MacPherson adapted Dix and Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland's 1906 play. J. Peverell Marley photographed it. Art direction is credited to Paul Iribe, Anton Grot, Mitchell Leisen, and Max Parker. It opened November 15, 1925, and runs 107 minutes. William Boyd has his first starring role, as Jack Moreland.
Themes
Background
The 1906 play had already used reincarnation as a marriage plot. DeMille's 1925 film was the first picture from the company he formed after leaving Paramount.
Making
The past-life section is an Elizabethan sequence cut against a modern train wreck. DeMille's new company used four art directors on the two periods.
Look
J. Peverell Marley shot both the plains wreck and the Elizabethan scenes.
Preservation
Complete prints are at the Library of Congress (35mm), the George Eastman Museum, UCLA (16mm and 35mm), and the Academy Film Archive. Private collections hold 16mm and 8mm copies.
Notes
- Joseph Schildkraut plays Kenneth Paulton. Jetta Goudal plays Malena. Vera Reynolds is Beth Tyrell. Trixie Friganza is Harriet Tyrell.
- Casson Ferguson, Julia Faye, Clarence Burton, and Charles West are in the cast. Sally Rand and Chester Morris appear without credit lines in some lists.
- DeMille next put Boyd alone in the lead of The Volga Boatman.
- Alpha Video issued a DVD in 2013. The Video Cellar issued one in 2014.
- Complete prints are at the Library of Congress, the George Eastman Museum, UCLA, and the Academy Film Archive.
Scenes
- Kenneth leaves for Chicago because Malena fears his appearance.
- The train wreck throws them back into the life where she is about to be burned.
- He pulls her from the wreck and the marriage starts again.
Influenced by
- Beulah Marie Dix and Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland's 1906 play The Road to Yesterday
Also available
- Alpha Video DVD (2013)
- The Video Cellar DVD (2014)
