Laurence Stallings and Maxwell Anderson's gritty WWI comedy-drama "What Price Glory?" was a center of controversy from the minute it opened on Broadway in 1924. The play was condemned for its explicit language, while a group of politicians tried to bring about a federal action to halt its production because of its "disrespectful" treatment of military officers and traditions. Naturally, any play that engendered that sort of reaction had to be a hit. Two years after its stage debut, the play was adapted for the screen.
The battle scenes, at times, are quite shocking — indeed, one man was actually killed during filming. One shows a group of soldiers standing in a trech is buried alive when a mine explodes.
Viewers able to read lips will be amused or horrified at the amount of swearing of the two main characters. Since it was a silent picture, actors McLaglen and Lowe were permitted to mouth any obscenity that came into their heads, allowing audiences in 1926 the spectacle of seeing two grown men hurling epithets that would never have been heard in any sort of polite society — all the while strictly adhering to the rules set down by the Hollywood censors, who objected only to printed profanities.
"What Price Glory" was remade in 1952 by John Ford, who directed one scene of the original 1926 version; Barry Norton, who played Lewisohn in the original, appeared in the remake as a priest.