One Man's Journey

1933 film by John S. Robertson

September 8, 1933 (1933-09-08)

Running time

72 minutesLanguageEnglish

One Man's Journey is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film starring Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Eli Watt. The picture was based on the short story Failure written by Katharine Haviland-Taylor. It was remade by RKO as A Man to Remember (1938). The story tells of a small-town doctor working under difficult circumstances in a rural area somewhere in the United States.

Plot

Cast

Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Eli Watt
May Robson as Sarah
Dorothy Jordan as Letty McGinnis
Joel McCrea as Jimmy Watt
Frances Dee as Joan Stockton
David Landau as McGinnis
Buster Phelps as Jimmy Watt (at age 6)
June Filmer as May Radford
James Bush as Bill Radford
Oscar Apfel as John Radford
Samuel S. Hinds as Dr. Babcock (as Sam Hinds)
Hale Hamilton as Dr. Tillinghast
Colin Kenny as Doctor at Banquet
John Ince as Dr. James Carson
Lloyd Ingraham as Townsman at Farewell Meeting
Dave O'Brien as Dance Extra
Frank O'Connor as Patient on Telephone
Russ Powell as Townsman in Front of Post Office
Forrest Taylor as Doctor at Banquet
Lucille Ward as Sick Boy's Mother

Reception

The film was popular at the box office.^[1]

Preservation status

In April 2007, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) premiered six films produced by Merian C. Cooper at RKO which had been out of distribution for more than 50 years. (A retired RKO executive stated in an interview used as a promo on TCM for the premiere that Cooper did allow the films to be shown in 1955–1956 in a limited re-release and only in New York City.)

According to TCM host Robert Osborne, Cooper agreed to a legal settlement in 1946, after accusing RKO of not giving him all the money due him from his producer's contract in the 1930s. The settlement gave Cooper complete ownership of six titles: Rafter Romance (1933), Double Harness (1933), The Right to Romance (1933), One Man's Journey (1933), Stingaree (1934), Living on Love (1937), and A Man to Remember (1938).

When Turner Broadcasting bought the RKO film library in 1987, the six films were not included[4] and the rights had to be purchased separately. The film's remake, A Man To Remember, was unable to be found. The original copies of the film's negative were destroyed due to negligence and the film was thought to have been lost forever. However, a 35mm, original nitrate print with Dutch subtitles was discovered in the Netherlands. It is the only known surviving copy and was restored by TCM.

In 2000, A Man to Remember was preserved by the Netherlands Film Museum.

References

^ Churchill, Douglas W. "The Year in Hollywood: 1934 May Be Remembered as the Beginning of the Sweetness-and-Light Era, New York Times [New York, NY], December 30, 1934: p. X5; retrieved December 16, 2013.