The Way of All Flesh
Cast & Crew
Louis King
Akim Tamiroff
Gladys George
William Henry
John Hartley
Marilyn Knowlden
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In 1925, in Linzua, Pennsylvania, Hungarian immigrant Paul Kriza makes an honest living as a bank cashier, content to support his devoted wife Anna and four children on a meager salary. Paul's boss, Franz Henzel, sends him to New York to deliver $100,000 cash to client Sandor Nemzetti. Varno, a spy in Henzel's bank, has notified crook Reginald L. Morten of Paul's arrival at the Hotel Empress. When Nemzetti is delayed, Morten's moll, Mary Brown, poses as a journalist and seduces Paul into drinking until he passes out. Upon awakening the next morning, Paul realizes that he has been robbed and accuses Mary, but she pretends not to know him. Morten's men then knock him out and put him on the railroad tracks. While one of them picks his pockets, Paul wakes and defends himself, and the thug is killed by an oncoming train. The police find Paul's inscribed watch on the tracks and assume that the mutilated corpse is Paul, and the papers report that a cashier died a hero's death while defending his trust. Although Paul recognizes his picture in the paper, no one believes that he is Paul Kriza because Mary had him shave off his beard, and his badly beaten body makes him look like a hobo. Suffering from psychological devastation and partial amnesia, Paul wanders the streets of New York for years, unsure of who he is. Meanwhile, his son Paul, Jr. grows up and becomes a world-class violinist. When Paul, Jr. makes his New York debut, his father is in the audience and cries when he plays his father's favorite piece for his encore. Paul, Jr. returns home to Linzau for Christmas and his father follows. He watches as his family visits his grave, then follows them home and peers in the window as they sing Christmas carols. When a policeman tries to arrest him, Paul, Jr. and Anna invite the stranger inside, but he declines and walks away into the snowy night.
Director
Louis King
Cast
Akim Tamiroff
Gladys George
William Henry
John Hartley
Marilyn Knowlden
Betty Mclaughlin
James West
Darryl Hickman
June Hedin
Norma Nelson
Tommy Bupp
Muriel Angelus
Berton Churchill
Fritz Leiber
Roger Imhof
James Seay
Douglas Kennedy
James Burke
Stanley Price
John Harmon
Leonard Penn
Torben Meyer
Robert C. Fischer
Ethel May Halls
Cullen Johnston
George Anderson
John Laird
Joyce Mathews
Wallace Rairden
Sam Ash
Allen Fox
Lester Scharff
Marty Faust
Wanda Mckay
Dorothy Dayton
Janet Waldo
Oscar Smith
Jack Norton
Paul E. Burns
Jimmy Conlin
Wade Boteler
Howard Mitchell
James Flavin
Billy Engle
Galan Galt
Guy Bellis
Sam Flint
Frank Darien
Henry Roquemore
Crew
Lajos Biro
Lenore Coffee
Hans Dreier
A. E. Freudeman
Jules Furthman
Stuart Gilmore
John Goodman
Hugo Grenzbach
Don Johnson
William Lebaron
Joseph Lefert
Henry Sharp
Theodor Sparkuhl
Victor Young
Eugene J. Zukor
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
A silent version of this story was made by Paramount in 1927 starring Emil Jannings and Belle Bennett and directed by Victor Fleming. Jules Furthman wrote the screenplay for the 1927 film, and Lajos Biro wrote the adaptation. That film credits the story "The Way of All Flesh" by Perley P. Sheehan as its literary source. The 1940 version does not credit the Sheehan story as a literary source, but instead credits Furthman and Biro with story.
