Way Back Home

This film gets off to a very slow start with a scene where an old New England farmer drives a tax accountant from the city nuts with his convoluted tales of bartering and swapping; being an accountant, he just wants the numbers. This went on so long, I almost gave up before the movie got underway, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It's not a great story, and it's certainly not what you'd call a Bette Davis film--she's a secondary character.

What it does do very well is to depict a rural American life that is long gone--listening in on the party line, sharing preserves with the neighbors, a taffy pull, and especially singing. The folks all gather at the preacher's house to sing the traditional American standards of the day, accompanied by the preacher's wife on a pump organ: "Love's Old Sweet Song," "Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet," "Seeing Nellie Home," and the like. I imagine these are mostly forgotten today, and it's nice to see them preserved in a relatively realistic context such as this. An unexpected pleasure.

... from RKO and director William Seiter. Old man preacher Seth Parker (Phillips Lord) and his wife (Effie Palmer) have trouble with their two wards: young Robbie (Frankie Darro) was left with them by his mother before she passed and made them swear to keep the boy safely away from his abusive father. Naturally, the brute (Stanley Fields) shows up and wants the kid back. Meanwhile, their other ward, Mary Lucy (Bette Davis), has been kicked out of her own home by her parents, and disapprove of her fraternizing with the low-born David (Frank Albertson).

Seth Parker was a popular radio show at the time, the creation of 29 year old Phillips Lord, who plays him in the movie under a big phony white beard and wig. It was considered dated and hackneyed even in 1931, with little appeal to younger listeners, so the screenwriters spiced it up a bit with the Davis/Albertson romance and some "high-speed" wagon chases at the end. That didn't save the movie for me, however, and I found it dull, tedious, and dumb, with bad performances and hoary dialogue that is nearly as dusty as the backroads of California that stand in for Maine. Davis isn't bad, and she's said to have liked the movie, since it allowed her to play an attractive girl at a time when the studios weren't giving her those kind of roles.

Watching Way Back Home and for contemporary fans the only reason it is at all memorable is that Bette Davis has a supporting role might make one wonder what people saw in it. Thinking about it you must remember in the height of the Roaring Twenties the American people elected Calvin Coolidge as president who had just such a cultural background as did the folks in Sundays At Seth Parker's. I'll bet Coolidge was a devoted listener.

Phillips Lord's Seth Parker is a local community leader and preacher of sorts in a rural Maine community. In this era of no mass media things like a Sunday gathering at the preacher with some community singing was not uncommon. By the way check out Joel McCrea's Stars In My Crown also about a rural preacher in a bit earlier an era in a different part of the country. Note the community singing there among the young people.

The main story in the film is that Lord and his wife Effie Palmer took in young Frankie Darro after his mom died and raised him as their own. Darro's real dad Stanley Fields has been in and out of trouble for years, but now he wants to lay claim to his kid.

Another subplot involves Bette Davis as a good girl being courted by Frank Albertson who as they said back in the day was born on the left side of the blanket. Mom never married dad and Davis's mom Sophie Lord won't have her daughter going out with him. Dorothy Peterson is Albertson's mom and she is shunned by a lot of the puritanical types in the town.

Let's say the two strands of the plot come together and it all works out for all except Fields.

I think I can safely say Way Back Home will not see a remake any time soon. As it is it's picture of a bygone era or one rustic curiosity, you take your choice.

This has the look of a silent film to the production, and with a decent story and a solid effort from Phillips Lord, is actually quite watchable. He adopts the young "Robbie" (Frankie Darro) after his brute of a father goes AWOL. Together with his wife (Effie Palmer), they soon come to love the lad, but a neighbourly dispute prompts the return of "Rufe" (Stanley Fields) to reclaim his son - despite the protestations of just about everyone else? Meantime, the young man's friend "Mary Lucy" (Bette Davis) is having family troubles of her own as her father will not let her see her beau "David" (Frank Albertson). Can they navigate the difficulties ahead find happiness? Davis (more especially, her big eyes) features quite sparingly; the film really belongs to an engaging performance from Lord as the decent family man determined to do what is right. The production is very basic. The camera work isn't helped by the editing (or is it the other way round?) but some work has gone into the characterisations and the dialogue is sparse enough to let the imagery do most the work - culminating in quite an entertaining buggy chase with some fisticuffs! No, it's not a film you are ever likely to recall watching afterwards, but it is quite fun and offers us a glimpse of rural American life in the 1920s.

WAY BACK HOME (RKO Radio, 1931/32), directed by William A. Seiter, became the screen adaptation to the popular radio show of the time featuring Phillips Lord as Seth Parker. A homespun melodrama with touches of humor in the reminder of some Fox Films starring the ever popular Will Rogers, Phillips Lord mannerisms with white hair and beard comes as a reflection to the similar performer of stage and screen named Charles "Chic" Sale, who appeared in more motion pictures to Lord's two. With the opening titles introducing Lord's character of Seth Parker above the title gives the indication of fans of the radio show to have the pleasure of watching the radio characters coming to life on the big screen. That was way back in early 1932. Seeing WAY BACK HOME would be more of interest today to a young actress early in her career to become a two-time Academy Award winner as Best Actress and a major star before the end of the decade. Her name is Bette Davis.

Set in Jonesport, Maine, the story focuses on just plain folks living as neighbors in a farming community. Seth Parker (Phillips Lord) is a middle-aged preacher who dedicates his life to the community and his loving wife (Ellie L. Palmer). Some years ago, he had taken in a child who grows up to become Robbie (Frankie Darro) as a favor of his dying mother to raise and keep him away from his drunken father who has since vanished from their lives. The subplot to the story involves David Clark (Frank Albertson), a hired hand working for Woobling Duffy (Oscar Apfel). Duffy fires David for being so much in love with his daughter, Mary Lucy (Bette Davis), but more to the fact that David's mother, known to the community as "Runaway Rosie" (Dorothy Peterson) had left town years ago to return with a child and no husband, only to be an outcast living alone without any friends. Problems arise when Mary Lucy is evicted from her home for standing up to her father, thus an outcast finding a new home living under the Parker family. As for Seth, who never adopted Robbie legally, finds himself facing Rube Turner (Stanley Fields), who has come to claim back his son. Other cast members include Sophia M. Lord (Lizzie), Bennett Kilpack (Cephus), Raymond Hunter (Captain Bang), and Shep, the dog.

Based on the story "Other People's Business" by Jane Murfin, WAY BACK HOME, its new title, is trifle slow with Phillips Lord doing quite a bit of talking and little action. Aside from humorous dialogue between Parker and the bill collector (Wade Boteler), and verbally reading at great length current events from the newspaper, one thing that sure matters is how the community should not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Dorothy Peterson's character gathers sympathy here as the outcast mother living through town gossip without really knowing the circumstances. The only time WAY BACK HOME becomes a real point of interest is during a horse and buggy chasing scene. Though Bette Davis is still early in her career, her performance, coming ten minutes into the story, shows her natural ability in performing along with her scenes opposite Frank Albertson played off in realistic manner.

WAY BACK HOME also consists of some old-style songs as "The Girl I Left Behind Me," "On Moonlight Bay," "Love's Old Sweet Song," "Swanee River," "Auld Lang Syne," "In The Good Old Summertime" and "Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet" among others. Maybe as a silent movie under the direction of D. W. Griffith in the 1920s, this might have proven more favorable considering how reminiscent to similar themes produced at that time to be seemingly outdated to Depression audiences of 1932.

Had it not been for the presence of Bette Davis, maybe WAY BACK HOME would seldom see any television revivals, or simply remain in some film vault gathering dust. Distributed on video cassette in 1991, and later DVD, Seth Parker and his homespun neighbors can be seen on occasion on Turner Classic Movies. (**)