1930's Die Grosse Fahrt

Bruce

Even if you are an incredibly major film buff, I bet you (and all your friends) don't know that The Big Trail (John Wayne's first chance at stardom, all the way back in 1930) was shot in FIVE languages simultaneously, with FIVE actors playing the lead role! The five languages were English, Italian, French, Spanish, and German!

The Italian version starred Franco Corsaro and Luisa Caselotti and was called "Il Grande Sentiero". The French version starred Gaston Glass and Jeanne Helbling and was called "La Piste des Geants". The Spanish version starred George J. Lewis and Carmen Guerrero and was called "La Gran Jornada". The German version starred Theo Shall and Marion Lessing and was called "Die Grosse Fahrt".

They are exactly the same movies, except for the language difference and the different cast (this is very similar to the 1931 U.S. and Mexican versions of "Dracula"), except imagine the difficulty of shooting five different versions all at one time, likely using the same sets!

I did not know any of this either, until I was consigned this great still, which is at auction at http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=6261604

And I bet they won't be releasing another movie called "Die Grosse Fahrt" anytime soon!

HONDO

Fascinating Bruce, and yes I too wasn't aware of this.

Although I included the following information in Hondo's This And That thread only in February 9 of this year, I decided to include it here again as it seems relevant to the topic under discussion. There may also be a number of people who may not have seen it at the time it appeared originally on the forum..

 The late 1920's and early 1930's had  both silent and sound film versions being made for the same film, as well as films being made in different foreign language versions of the same film. 



( Trove )

What I do find interesting in the article is that the 1929 mentioned film The Voice of The City sound version was directed by William Mack and the silent version was directed by George Melford. On checking on the films credits on IMDb I found only the sound version credit stating William Mack was the director appears there. No mention at all in there being a separate silent version directed by George Melford who went on a few years later to direct an alternate Spanish language version of Dracula for Universal in 1931. This version was filmed at night on the Dracula set that  the U.S.A. Bela Lugosi version was filmed on the same day. This film is most likely the film George Melford will be most remember for.

The Dracula Spanish language version poster.