The Big Trail
The Big Trail | |
---|---|
Fox Film Corporation | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 122 min. 70mm version 108 min. 35mm version |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,250,000[1] |
The Big Trail is a 1930 American
In 2006, the United States Library of Congress deemed this film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, saying "the plot of a trek along the Oregon Trail is aided immensely by the majestic sweep provided by the experimental 70mm Grandeur wide-screen process used in filming".[2][3][4]
Plot
A large caravan of settlers attempt to cross the Oregon Trail. 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 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
- John Wayne as Breck Coleman
- Marguerite Churchill as Ruth Cameron
- El Brendel as Gus
- Tully Marshall as Zeke
- Tyrone Power Sr. as Red Flack (as Tyrone Power)
- David Rollins as Dave Cameron
- Frederick Burton as Pa Bascom
- Ian Keith as Bill Thorpe
- Charles Stevens as Lopez
- Louise Carver 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 who then passed it on to his friend Raoul Walsh.[5]
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.[6]
Production
The shoot lasted from April 20 to August 20, 1930
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.[
Release and reception
After shooting, the film was previewed to select audiences and generally released in October 1930. "Often the scenes" in the film, wrote Mordaunt Hall in The New York Times "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".[10] 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".[10]
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 Stagecoach (1939) for him to become a mainstream performer again.[11]
The two versions
Beyond the format difference, the 70mm and
Critics views
As of 2018, Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 100% rating.[13]
Preservation and re-release
A neglected film for many years, it was only seen in the conventional 35mm version for decades.
Dave Kehr wrote for the Chicago Tribune 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".[7]
Home media
The 70mm version was finally seen on cable television 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.[16] A Blu-ray edition featuring the 70-millimeter version was released in September 2012.[17]
The film's copyright was renewed, so the film will not be in the public domain until 2026.[18]
Foreign-language versions
A fairly common practice in the early sound era was to simultaneously produce at least one
- French: La Piste des géants (1931), directed by Pierre Couderc, starring Gaston Glass (Pierre Calmine), Jeanne Helbling (Denise Vernon), Margot Rousseroy (Yvette), Raoul Paoli (Flack), Louis Mercier (Lopez).
- German: Die Große Fahrt (1931), directed by Lewis Seiler and IMDb
- Italian: Il grande sentiero (1931), starring Franco Corsaro and Luisa Caselotti.[notes 1]
- Spanish: La Gran jornada (1931), directed by David Howard, Samuel Schneider, and IMDb
Further reading
- Elyes, Allen. John Wayne. South Brunswick, N.J.: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1979; ISBN 0-498-02487-3.
Notes
- ^ Luisa Caselotti's younger sister, Adriana Caselotti, was the voice of Snow White in Walt Disney's animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
- ^ Villarías is best known for playing the title character in the Spanish-language version of Drácula (1931).
- ^ Stevens plays the same part in both the English and Spanish versions of The Big Trail.
References
- ^ Motion Picture News, May 24, 1930
- ^ ISSN 0731-3527.
The story goes that director Raoul Walsh was seeking a male lead for his new Western and asked his friend John Ford. Ford recommended an unknown actor 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". The plot of a trek along the Oregon Trail is aided immensely by the majestic sweep provided by the experimental Grandeur wide-screen process used in filming. However, Wayne's starring role in the movie did not lead to stardom. He languished in low-budget pictures until John Ford cast him in the 1939 classic "Stagecoach".
- ^ "Librarian of Congress Adds Home Movie, Silent Films and Hollywood Classics to Film Preservation List". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
- ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0813133942.
- ^ a b Henry Cabot Beck (July 1, 2008). "Young Wayne Blazed a Big Trail". True West Magazine. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- ^ a b c Kehr, Dave (June 17, 1988). "Grandeur Still Evident In 1930's The Big Trail". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- ^ Silver, Charles (August 10, 2010). "Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail". Museum of Modern Art. New York City. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- ^ "American Cinematographer Magazine" – Volume 96 (April 2015). Article: "The Big Trail"
- ^ a b Hall, Mordaunt (November 2, 1930). "A Grandeur Production; The Big Trail Has Remarkable Scenes in Pioneer Story of a Century Ago". The New York Times. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- BBC News Magazine. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- ^ Edeson, Arthur (September 1930). "Wide Film Cinematography: Some Comments on 70mm Camerawork From a Practical Cinematographer". American Cinematographer. The Widescreen Museum. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- ^ "The Big Trail". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- ^ "Karl D. Malkames". The Journal News. Westchester, New York. March 10, 2010. Retrieved September 3, 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-87070-326-3.
- ^ 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC, www.foxhome.com, PO Box 900, Beverly Hills, Ca, copyright 2008
- ^ "The Big Trail Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- ^ "Catalog of Copyright Entries 1957 Motion Pictures and Filmstrips Jan-Dec 3D Ser Vol 11 PTS 12-13". U.S. Govt. Print. Off. 1957.
See also
External links
- The Big Trail essay by Marilyn Ann Moss at National Film Registry [1]
- 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 ISBN 0826429777, pages 171-173 [2]
- Magnified Grandeur – The Big Screen, 1926–31, David Coles, 2001
- "Wide Film Cinematography: Some Comments on 70mm Camerawork From a Practical Cinematographer", Arthur Edeson, A.S.C., American Cinematographer, September 1930.
- The Big Trail at IMDb
- The Big Trail at AllMovie
- The Big Trail at the TCM Movie Database
- The Big Trail at Rotten Tomatoes