The Road to Yesterday
by Beulah Marie Dix & Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland
The Road to Yesterday, although based on fantastic means, is one of the first time travel stories on film.
Dix, who collaborated on the play, also worked with Jeanie Macpherson to adapt it into Cecile B. DeMille's 1925 film. The central idea of the play is used in the film (a "flashback" to Elizabethan England) but the framing events are totally dissimilar.
In both versions the main characters become reincarnations of past lives::
"Ken" - Kenneth Paulton (film) / Kenhelmm Pawlet (play) (Lord Strangevon)
"Jack" - Jack Moreland (film, played by William Boyd) / Jack Greatorex (Play) (Reformado Jack)
"Melena" - Melena Paulton (film) / Melena Leveson (play) (Black Melena)
"Beth" - Beth Tyrell (film) / Elsbeth Tyrell (play) (Lady Elizabeth Tyrell)
Minor characters are dropped and added but the central plot concept involving these four remains fairly much the same.
SPOILERS
Beth is searching for her Knight in Shining Armor. She finds out that Jacks's the one in both the past and present. They live happily ever after.
Ken wronged his beloved in a previous life and cannot comprehend her contradictory feelings toward him. Ken redeems himself. They live happily ever after.
The play begins and ends in the Leveson studio in Kennsington, England. Elsbeth time travels back and forth in time via a Midsummer Eve's wish.
In typical DeMille style, the film version starts off in the splendor of the Grand Canyon. Time travel is invoked by an eerie train wreck. There is a large religious flavor in DeMille's film. Jack is a minister in his present life. Ken turns to prayer in order to save Melena.
All things considered, the film is quite enjoyable. I consider it an improvement over the source material.
written: 7/28/2002
