The author of the novel upon which this was based, Erich Maria Remarque, knew what it was like to be stateless. He wrote his book in 1939. He had his German citizenship stripped by the Nazi government the year before.
Near the beginning of the film, after Fredric March's character is arrested and brought in for questioning, he states that he was born "August 31st, 1897, in Munich." This is March's real date of birth in Racine, Wisconsin.
The film was released in February, 1941 - nine months before the U.S. entered the war. No major studio wanted to touch this production, fearing German reprisals. It was produced independently.
Prologue: "FOREWORD: When the present rulers of Germany came into power, thousands of people, compelled to take refuge in neighbouring countries, found themselves in the most fantastic dilemma of our times. For they had no passports, those all-important papers which enable a person to enter and remain in a country other than his own.
Without passports, these refugees had no legal right to live anywhere. They were forced to keep on the march--an endless march interrupted only by arrest and imprisonment for illegal entry, then deportation into another country where the same fate awaited them.
This is a story of the people without passports. It begins in Vienna in 1937, before the German occupation of Austria."
Without passports, these refugees had no legal right to live anywhere. They were forced to keep on the march--an endless march interrupted only by arrest and imprisonment for illegal entry, then deportation into another country where the same fate awaited them.
This is a story of the people without passports. It begins in Vienna in 1937, before the German occupation of Austria."
This is only the eighth feature film by the 25-year-old Glenn Ford.