Donner Pass: The Road to Survival | |
---|---|
Genre | |
Written by | S. S. Schweitzer |
Directed by | James L. Conway |
Starring | |
Music by | Bob Summers |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Executive producer | Charles E. Sellier Jr. |
Producer | James Simmons |
Production locations |
|
Cinematography | Henning Schellerup |
Editor | Trevor Jolly |
Running time | 100 minutes |
Production companies | |
Original release | |
Network | NBC |
Release | October 24, 1978 |
Donner Pass: The Road to Survival is a 1978 American historical drama television film about the Donner Party, directed by James L. Conway, written by S. S. Schweitzer, and produced by Schick Sunn Classic Pictures as a part of their Classics Illustrated series. It aired on NBC on October 24, 1978.
A grim incident from American pioneer history is recreated as a determined group of settlers, facing almost insurmountable odds, struggles to reach California in 1846.
Donner Pass: The Road to Survival was shown on prime time television on NBC on October 24, 1978. The film was released on VHS on October 20, 1992, by Anchor Bay Entertainment. [1]
Film critic Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "gruelling to watch". [2]
The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, were a group of American pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, primarily eating the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness or extreme cold, but in one case two Native American guides were deliberately killed for this purpose.
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Donner Party timeline provides an almost day-to-day basic description of events directly associated with the 1846 Donner Party pioneers, covering the journey from Illinois to California—2,500 miles, over the Great Plains, two mountain ranges, and the deserts of the Great Basin.
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