This page hosted by Get your own Free Homepage
Bupp Filmology
Week Twenty-Three

"Three Faces West" 1940

MOVIE NAME: THREE FACES WEST
STUDIO: REPUBLIC PICTURES
PRODUCER: SOL C. SIEGEL
DIRECTOR: BRENARD VORHAUS
DATE: 1940
TYPE: DRAMA
CAST:
JOHN WAYNE as John Phillips, SIGRID GURIE as Leni Braun, CHARLES COBURN as Dr. Karl Braun, SPENCER CHARTERS as Nunk , HELEN MacKELLAR as Mrs. Welles, SONNY BUPP as Billy Welles, WADE BOTELER as Harris, TREVOR BARDETTE as Higgins, RUSSELL SIMPSON as Minister, CHARLES WALDRON as Dr. Thorpe, WENDELL NILES as Radio announcer, ROLAND VARNO as Eric, FREDRICK VOGEDING as Schmidt, WOLFGANG ZILZER as Dr. Preussner

SOURCE:AFI, Catalog of Feature Films 1931-1940
STORY: The "We The People" radio program is devoting a broadcast to the story of refugee doctors, driven from their homeland and looking for positions in doctorless towns of America when Dr. Karl Braun, one of the physicians, relates the tale of how he and his daughter Leni were driven from their homeland in Vienna. As a result of the broadcast, father and daughter are summoned to the town of Asheville Forks, North Dakota by John Phillips, the leader of the farmer's organization there. They arrive in the midst of a dust storm, and Leni, distressed by the hardships she has suffered and by the death of her fiancé Eric, wants to leave the town immediately. Her father, however, insists on staying to aid the ailing and impoverished farmers who must helplessly watch as their fortunes are blown away by the wind. Leni soon adapts to the farm community, and love comes to her and John. Soon afterward, word arrives from Eric, that he is alive and coming to America, and out of gratitude, agrees to meet him in San Francisco and marry him. John's trouble mount as a dust storm devastates the land, and he convinces the farmers to follow him to a new home in Oregon. Along the way, Higgins, a troublemaker, attempts to agitate the farmers to venture to California instead, but John, after a bout of disillusionment, rallies the farmers on to Oregon. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Leni and her father are shocked to learn Eric has joined forces with the Nazis, and father and daughter leave Eric to rejoin John in Oregon.

Back