Journey's End - Adaptations

Adaptations

In 1930, James Whale directed a motion picture based on the play, starring Colin Clive, David Manners and Ian Maclaren. A German remake, The Other Side (Die andere Seite) was directed by Heinz Paul in 1931

The play was televised by the BBC Television Service, live from its Alexandra Palace studios, on 11 November 1937, in commemoration of Armistice Day. Condensed into a one-hour version by the producer George More O'Ferrall, some short sequences from the 1930 film Westfront 1918 by G. W. Pabst were used for scene-setting purposes. Reginald Tate starred as Stanhope, with Basil Gill as Osborne,Norman Pierce as Trotter, Wallace Douglas as Raleigh, J. Neil More as the Colonel, R. Brooks Turner as the Company Sergeant-Major, Alexander Field as Mason, Reginald Smith as Hardy and Olaf Olsen as the young German soldier. Because it was broadcast live, and the technology to record television programmes did not exist at the time, no visual records of the production survive other than still photographs.

Journey's End was the basis for the 1976 film Aces High, although the action was switched from the infantry to the Royal Flying Corps.

The play was adapted for television in 1988, starring Jeremy Northam as Stanhope, Edward Petherbridge as Osborne and Timothy Spall as Trotter. It held close to the original script although there were changes, the most obvious being the depiction on camera of the raid, which happens off-stage in the theatre production.