''The Big Trail'' is a 1930 American pre-Code Western early widescreen film shot on location across the American West starring 23-year-old

John Wayne Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Go ...

in his first leading role and directed by Raoul Walsh. In 2006, the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

deemed this film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and selected it for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

, saying "the plot of a trek along the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

is aided immensely by the majestic sweep provided by the experimental 70mm Grandeur wide-screen process used in filming".

Plot

A large caravan of settlers attempt to cross the

. Breck Coleman is a young trapper who just got back to Missouri from his travels near Santa Fe, seeking to avenge the death of an old trapper friend who was killed the winter before along the

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, ...

for his furs, by Red Flack and his minion Lopez. At a large trading post owned by a man named Wellmore, Coleman sees Flack and suspects him right away as being one of the killers. Flack likewise suspects Coleman as being somebody who knows too much about the killing. Coleman is asked by a large group of settlers to scout their caravan west, and declines, until he learns that Flack and Lopez were just hired by Wellmore to boss a bull train along the as-yet-unblazed Oregon Trail to a trading post in northern Oregon Territory (which at the time extended into current British Columbia), owned by another Missouri fur trader. Coleman agrees to scout for the train, so he can keep an eye on the villains and kill them as soon as they reach their destination. The caravan of settlers in their covered wagons would follow Wellmore's ox-drawn train of Conestoga wagons, as the first major group of settlers to move west on the Oregon Trail. Coleman finds love with young Ruth Cameron, whom he'd kissed accidentally, mistaking her for somebody else. Unwilling to accept her attraction toward him, Ruth gets rather close to a gambler acquaintance of Flack's, who joined the trail after being caught cheating. Coleman and Flack have to lead the settlers west, while Flack does everything he can to have Coleman killed before he finds any proof of what he'd done. The three villains' main reason for going west is to avoid the hangman's noose for previous crimes, and all three receive frontier justice instead. The settlers trail ends in an unnamed valley, where Coleman and Ruth finally settle down together amidst giant redwoods.

Cast

as Breck Coleman * Marguerite Churchill as Ruth Cameron * El Brendel as Gus * Tully Marshall as Zeke *

Tyrone Power Sr. Frederick Tyrone Edmond Power Sr. (2 May 1869 – 23 December 1931) was an English-born American stage and screen actor, known professionally as Tyrone Power. He is now usually referred to as Tyrone Power Sr. to differentiate him from his son ...

as Red Flack (as Tyrone Power) * David Rollins as Dave Cameron * Frederick Burton as Pa Bascom *

Ian Keith Ian Keith (born Keith Ross; February 27, 1899 – March 26, 1960) was an American actor. Early years Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Keith grew up in Chicago. He was educated at the Francis Parker School there and played Hamlet in a school p ...

as Bill Thorpe * Charles Stevens as Lopez *

Louise Carver Louise Carver (June 9, 1869 - June 19, 1956) was an American actress who performed in grand opera, stage, nickelodeon, and motion pictures. Early years and career Born Mary Louise Steiger in Davenport, Iowa, she was the daughter of Mr. and M ...

as Gus's mother-in-law

Pre-production

Reputedly (the claim is unconfirmed) the initial script, then called "The Oregon Trail", was first offered to director

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...

who then passed it on to his friend Raoul Walsh. For the film, Walsh had employed 93 actors and used as many as 725 natives from five different Indian tribes. He also obtained 185 wagons, 1,800 cows, 1,400 horses, 500 buffalos and 700 chickens, pigs and dogs for the production of the film. Walsh offered the lead to

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...

Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, a ...

, who couldn't accept it. According to John Ford's later account, Walsh supposedly then asked Ford for casting suggestions, whereupon Ford recommended a then-unknown named John Wayne because he "liked the looks of this new kid with a funny walk, like he owned the world". When Wayne professed inexperience, Walsh told him to just "sit good on a horse and point". Walsh said that he initially saw Wayne, then a prop man, moving heavy furniture as though it were light as a feather, then decided to test him for the part. Almost a decade later, Ford began saying that he himself had discovered Wayne as a prop man when casting ''

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...

'' (1939), even though Wayne had played the lead in dozens of movies by then throughout the 1930s. Ford stuck to this obviously false story in interviews for the rest of his life. Filming on ''The Big Trail'' began on-location just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico in April 1930, which was unheard of at the time and quickly became very costly to the studio.

Production

The shoot lasted from April 20 to August 20, 1930 and was filmed in seven states. The film was shot in an early widescreen process called 70 mm Grandeur film, which was first used in the film ''

Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 ''Fox Movietone Follies of 1929'', also known as ''Movietone Follies of 1929'' and ''The William Fox Movietone Follies of 1929'', is an American black-and-white and color pre-Code musical film released by Fox Film Corporation. Plot George Shelb ...

''. Grandeur was used by the Fox Film Corporation for a handful of films released in 1929 and 1930, of which ''The Big Trail'' was the last. Grandeur proved financially unviable for an industry still investing in the switch to talking pictures. The scene of the wagon train drive across the country was pioneering in its use of camera work and the depth and view of the epic landscape. An effort was made to lend authenticity to the movie, with the wagons drawn by oxen instead of horses – they were lowered by ropes down canyons when necessary for certain shots in narrow valleys.

's character's clothing looks realistically grimy, and even the food supplies the 'immigrants' carried with them in their wagons were thoroughly researched. Locations in five states, starting from New Mexico to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, were used to film the caravan's trek.

Release and reception

The Big Trail lobby card (title card).jpg, The Big Trail lobby card (2).jpg, The Big Trail lobby card (3).jpg, The Big Trail lobby card (4).jpg, The Big Trail lobby card (5).jpg, The Big Trail lobby card (6).jpg, The Big Trail lobby card (7).jpg, After shooting, the film was previewed to select audiences and generally released in October 1930. "Often the scenes" in the film, wrote

Mordaunt Hall Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' "cause one to marvel at their naturalness and beauty. It has a thunderstorm that looks as real as the land, water and sky that confront one throughout this production". According to Hall, in one sequence, featuring a native American attack, "suddenly it seems as though one were tugged from one's seat and thrown in front of the charging horses, which appear to plunge from the screen and disappear into the velvety darkness of the theatre". However, the movie became a box office bomb because it was released as a widescreen film during a time when theatres were unwilling to change their standard screens owing to cost. After the box-office failure of the film due to the Depression stopping theatres from investing in widescreen technology, Wayne was only cast in low-budget serials and features (mostly Poverty Row Westerns); although his name was billed above the title in dozens of movies in the 1930s and he enjoyed a large following, especially in the South, it took Wayne's role in ''

'' (1939) for him to become a mainstream performer again. It would be over 20 years after the release of ''The Big Trail'' before the concept of widescreen films was revived; the same Grandeur cameras were eventually modified for use with 35mm film and anamorphic lenses on ''The Robe.''

The two versions

Beyond the format difference, the 70mm and

35mm 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on fi ...

versions vary substantially from each other. They were shot by different cameras, and footage for each format was edited separately in the cutting room. Some scenes were shot simultaneously by both cameras, the only difference being the angle (with the better angle usually given to the 70mm camera). Some scenes were shot first by one camera, and then retaken with the other camera. The 70mm cameras could not focus well up close, so their shots were mainly panoramas with very few close-ups. The 35mm cameras could move in and focus at short distances. Thus, scenes in the 70mm version might show two characters talking to each other in the same take, making greater use of the widescreen frame, while the 35mm version would have close-up shots cutting back and forth between the two characters. This may have been an artistic choice as much as a technical one. The cinematographer responsible for the 70mm version of the picture,

Arthur Edeson Arthur Edeson, A.S.C. (October 24, 1891 – February 14, 1970) was a film cinematographer, born in New York City. His career ran from the formative years of the film industry in New York, through the silent era in Hollywood, and the sound era the ...

, wrote in the September 1930 issue of '' American Cinematographer'': "Grandeur reduces the number of close-ups considerably, as the figures are so much larger that semi-close-ups are usually all that is needed". In editing the films, some scenes were edited out for one version but allowed to remain in the other. The 35mm version was edited to be shorter, so many scenes in the 70mm version are not found in the 35mm. However, there are a few scenes in the 35mm version not found in the 70mm. The 35mm version was 108 minutes, but the 70mm was longer at 122 minutes.

Critics views

As of 2018,

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

gives the film a 100% rating.

Preservation and re-release

A neglected film for many years, it was only seen in the conventional 35mm version for decades. In the early 1980s, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, which held the original 70mm nitrate camera negative, wished to preserve the film but found that nitrate decomposition had left it too shrunken and fragile to be copied to

safety film Cellulose acetate film, or safety film, is used in photography as a base material for photographic emulsions. It was introduced in the early 20th century by film manufacturers and intended as a safe film base replacement for unstable and highly ...

, and that no film lab would touch it. Over a year-long project, Karl Malkames, a specialist in film restoration technology, designed and built a special printer to preserve this version of the film. The image on the original negative was transferred to a 35mm anamorphic master. The printer copied at a speed of one frame a second, leading to the film's year-long process in preserving its original form.

Dave Kehr David Kehr (born 1953) is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the '' Chicago Reader'' and the ''Chicago Tribune,'' he later wrote a weekly column for ''The New York Times'' on DVD releases. He later became a ...

wrote for the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' in 1988: "The added richness of resolution and the silvery sheen that the first generation 70 mm. nitrate prints would have provided can only be imagined. And yet, ''The Big Trail'' remains an eye-popping experience".

Home media

The 70mm version was finally seen on

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

in the late 1990s. The 35mm version had been released to VHS and DVD previously for several years. A two-disc restored DVD was released in the U.S. on May 13, 2008, featuring the 35- and 70-millimeter versions. A

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

edition featuring the 70-millimeter version was released in September 2012. The film's copyright was renewed, so the film will not be in the public domain until 2026.

Foreign-language versions

A fairly common practice in the early sound era was to simultaneously produce at least one foreign-language version of a film for release in non-English-speaking countries; an approach later replaced by simply dubbing the dialogue. There were at least four foreign-language versions made of ''The Big Trail'', all filmed in 35mm, 1.20:1 ratio and using different casts and different character names: *French: '' La Piste des géants'' (1931), directed by Pierre Couderc, starring

Gaston Glass Gaston Glass (born Jacques Gaston Oscar Glass; December 31, 1899 – November 11, 1965) was a French-American actor and film producer. He was the father of the composer Paul Glass (born 1934). Selected filmography * ''The Corsican Brot ...

''(Pierre Calmine),''

Jeanne Helbling Jeanne Helbling (July 26, 1903 – August 6, 1985) was a French film actressGoble p.37 and a prominent member of the French Resistance during World War II. Selected filmography * '' The Thruster'' (1924) * '' Mandrin'' (1924) * '' Captain Rasc ...

''(Denise Vernon),'' Margot Rousseroy ''(Yvette),'' Raoul Paoli ''(Flack),'' Louis Mercier ''(Lopez). '' *German: ''Die Große Fahrt'' (1931), directed by Lewis Seiler and Raoul Walsh, starring Theo Shall ''(Bill Coleman),'' Marion Lessing ''(Ruth Winter),'' Ullrich Haupt ''(Thorpe),'' Arnold Korff ''(Peter),'' Anders Van Haden ''(Bull Flack),'' Peter Erkelenz ''(Fichte),'' Paul Panzer ''(Lopez).'' *Italian: ''Il grande sentiero'' (1931), starring Franco Corsaro and Luisa Caselotti.Luisa Caselotti's younger sister, Adriana Caselotti, was the voice of Snow White in

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

's animated classic ''

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection '' Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as ...

'' (1937). *Spanish: ''La Gran jornada'' (1931), directed by David Howard, Samuel Schneider, and Raoul Walsh, starring Jorge Lewis ''(Raul Coleman),'' Carmen Guerrero ''(Isabel Prados),'' Roberto Guzmán ''(Tomas),'' Martin Garralaga ''(Martin)'',

Al Ernest Garcia Allan Ernest Garcia (11 March 1887 – 4 September 1938) was an American actor and casting director, best known for his long association with Charlie Chaplin. Life and career Al Ernest Garcia appeared in over 120 films between 1911 and 1938, mos ...

''(Flack),'' Tito Davison ''(Daniel),''

Carlos Villarías Carlos Villarías (7 July 1892 – 27 April 1976) was a Spanish actor who was born in Córdoba, Spain, and died in California, United States. His most famous role is in the title role of the Spanish-language version of ''Dracula'' (1931), w ...

Villarías is best known for playing the

title character The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of ...

in the Spanish-language version of '' Drácula'' (1931). ''(Orena),'' Charles StevensStevens plays the same part in both the English and Spanish versions of ''The Big Trail''. ''(Lopez).''

Notes

References

External links

*''The Big Trail'' essay by Marilyn Ann Moss at

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*''The Big Trail'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 171-17
Magnified Grandeur – The Big Screen, 1926–31
David Coles, 2001

Arthur Edeson, A.S.C., '' American Cinematographer'', September 1930. * * *
''The Big Trail''
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Big Trail, The 1930 films 1930 Western (genre) films American Western (genre) films 1930s English-language films American black-and-white films Fox Film films Films set in Missouri United States National Film Registry films Films directed by Raoul Walsh American multilingual films 1930 multilingual films 1930s American films