Paul decides to leave Chicago on a freight train, and returns to his home town and spends the night in his father's barn.

[5] King Vidor describe how he broke into feature film directing in 1918: "I wrote a script [The Turn in the Road] and sent it around... and nine doctors put up $1,000 each... and it was a success.

Nonetheless, its “record-breaking run” at a Los Angeles theater drew the attention of Robertson-Cole, which purchased it for national release through Exhibitors Mutual.

[7] The Christian Science ideals that Vidor presented in The Turn in the Road suggest his financial backers at Brentwood were at least sympathetic to its precepts.

[9][10] Film historian John Baxter cites a contemporary review by The New York Times describing a “particularly powerful” scene contrasting the response of “a child, and a rich, powerful man” to the fury of a thunderstorm: the child reacts with curiosity and wonder at the “natural force”; the man winces at each lightning flash and peal of thunder, daunted by an element that his “money and [social] power cannot overcome.” [11] Film historians Raymond Durgnat and Scott Simmons report that no print of the film has been discovered by archivists: Of all of Vidor’s features, the loss of his first… is most to be regretted.