Review of Journey's End

Journey's End is the film version of a what was, at that time, considered to be a one of the most important and influential plays of the period. Dealing with life toll taken by life in the trenches during WW-I, the film was both written by, and directed by, men who actually experienced what is depicted on the screen. Unlike the 2017 remake, this production was not a retrospective view of events that took place in he dim and distant past, but a cathartic release of the emotional baggage that those who made the film carried within themselves. R. C. Sherriff and James Whale did not require history books to research what life in the trenches was like, because both of them had actually lived these experiences. Moreover, those experiences were not distant memories for them, either, since the events depicted in this film were, at that time, a mere dozen years in the past.

It is granted that the production is a bit stagy. Part of that is clearly due to the fact that the movie was based upon a play, which was probably presented on stage using only one single set, the inside the claustrophobic confines of a dugout. Moreover, the production of the film was clearly limited by the primitive state of sound film production at that time, which required that the actors not move around too much, in order not to get beyond the range of the rudimentary recording equipment of the day.

Nevertheless, this remains a very powerful story, and one cannot escape the feeling that this is probably a realistic depiction of how it really was.