Will and Eleanor Lightbody travel to Battle Creek, Michigan to join the John Kellogg’s sanatorium - Will has recurring abdominal pains while Eleanor tries to cope with recent miscarriage. Eleanor is great fan of Kellogg and his unusual healing methods, while Will is reluctant. From day one he feels out of place - all the patients seem more like a cult to him, the methods he finds both embarrassing and uncomfortable, but hoping the therapy will help him save the marriage he tries his best not to complain. On the same train Charles Ossining arrives to Battle Creek to manage his aunt’s corn flake business - the success of Kellogg’s invention caused a boom on the market and many companies are manufacturing breakfast cereals. On the arrival Charles learns that all the money his aunt has sent to Goodloe Bender, man who was suppose to establish the business, in fact he spent on his his own expenses and in fact there is no business to be managed. George Kellogg, estranged son of John Kellogg, also arrives to the sanatorium, which caused quite a havoc.
Comedy-drama directed by Alan Parker shows the fictional look on John Kellogg’s sanatorium in Battle Creek, where inventor of breakfast cereals was using questionable methods to heal the people - from weird diets to countless enemas and from vegetarianism to electric therapy. While the story itself, based on a novel, is fiction the atmosphere, the reality of the times in which everyone was inventing miraculous cure are quite realistic. Three seemingly separate stories link together to a unexpected culmination. Good cast, interesting story and comic look at our past.
add comment
 |
The Road to Wellville |
 |
director | |
|
screenplay | |
|
screenplay |
 |
as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg | |
|
as William Lightbody | |
|
as Charles Ossining | |
|
as Eleanor Lightbody | |
|
as George Kellogg | |
|
as Goodloe Bender | |
|
as Dr. Lionel Badger | |
 |
as Ida Muntz | |
|
as Endymion Hart-Jones | |
|
as Nurse Irene Graves | |
|
as Virginia Cranehill | |
|
as Young George Kellogg | |
|
as Dr. Spitzvogel |
| The Road to Wellville The title The Road to Wellville was taken from booklet written by C. W. Post, who was in past patient of Kellogg’s sanatorium and later opened his own breakfast cereal business. Box office failure After premiere The Road to Wellville received rather negative reviews and failed to attract much attention of the viewers - with budget of 25 million dollars the film gathered less than 7 million income. |
William Lightbody: Oh, no, no, I can’t eat fifteen gallons of yoghurt. Goodloe Bender: Health! The "open sesame" to the sucker’s purse! Dr. John Harvey Kellogg: My own stools, Sir, are gigantic and have no more odor than a hot biscuit. |
