The bucolic tearjerker
Way Back Home
is a spin-off of the popular radio series
Seth Parker
, with Phillips H. Lord, creator-star of the radio original, repeating his role as backwoods philosopher Parker. The plot centers on the romantic tribulations of Mary Lucy (Bette Davis, who received the munificent sum of $300 per week for her performance!), and David Clark (Frank Albertson), who are being kept apart by their feuding parents. Armed with a surfeit of advice -- and, on occasion, a shotgun -- Seth Parker helps the lovers overcome a nasty local scandal during their journey to the altar. Deftly woven into the screenplay are such rural pastimes as taffy-pulling, community "sings," and barn dances. It's hard to believe that Phillips Lord, so convincing as the kindly Parker, was the same man responsible for the blood-and-thunder radio serial
I Love a Mystery
. In England, where the radio program was an unknown commodity,
was retitled
Old Greatheart
.