Way Back Home

Native New Englander Phillips Lord was a true Golden Age of Radio renaissance man – writer, producer, actor and all-around creative force. Lord first came to national acclaim with his creation of a backwoods-Maine senior-citizen sage in Sunday Evening at Seth Parker's, a revue combining songs, sketches and slices of small-town life. A natural fit for RKO's Radio Pictures, Seth Parker and co. made the jump to the big screen alongside a pair of up-and-comers: Frank Albertson and, more significantly, a recent transplant from the east named Bette Davis. The two play star-crossed lovers David Clark, bastard son of shunned fallen woman Rose (Dorothy Peterson), and Mary Lucy Duffy, daughter of local landed bully Wobbling (Oscar Apfel), who seek shelter and aid from Seth. But Seth has problems of his own, as his adopted son Robbie (Frankie Darro) has been snatched by his birth father, the dangerous Rufe (Stanley Fields).