The Imperial Road (1935)

Interesting facts

La Route impériale is a 1935 French film directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It combines a romantic drama with a military adventure story, set against the contemporary background of British operations against a rebellion in the kingdom of Iraq.

Production

The subject of the film was proposed to Marcel L'Herbier by the producer Pierre O'Connell, of Film Union. It came as part of a wave of enthusiasm for colonial adventures on film, such as The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and La Bandera. The play from which the film was adapted was La Maison cernée by Pierre Frondaie, written in 1919 and staged in Paris soon afterwards; it was a romantic melodrama set in Palestine during World War I.

Filming took place in May and June 1935, at the Billancourt studios in France and in Algeria at Bou Saâda and Boghari for exterior scenes. At Bordj El Kiffan, on the outskirts of Algiers, they used the remains of a film set built for Julien Duvivier's biblical film Golgotha; it now served to represent the rebel fortress of Ksour and was blown up in the final scenes of the film.

L'Herbier's assistant director was Ève Francis who had previously worked on many films with him both as actress and assistant. The music for the film was composed by Marius-François Gaillard who had written the orchestral score for L'Herbier's silent film El Dorado.

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