THE BIG TRAIL: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox 1930) Fox Home Video
Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail (1930) straddles a
fascinating chasm in the history of not only film, but of Hollywood. On the one
hand, it represents the foresight, courage and blind faith of William Fox – a
film pioneer and entrepreneurial maverick in the industry. During Hollywood’s
early gestations, Fox became a force to be reckoned with, building a monopoly
that included not only an amalgam of lucrative independent studios (cumulatively
melding them into 20th Century-Fox) but also owning his own theater
chain and laboratories for processing film; all the while acquiring Loews
Incorporated, the corporate entity that had put rival studio – MGM – on the
map.
Fox was a creative
visionary with a forward thinking plan for the future. He developed the first
70mm widescreen film process – Grandeur – owning it outright, and was
determined to make it the next big technology that the other studios would be
scrambling to catch up. To this end, Fox commissioned one of his top directors,
Raoul Walsh to craft a gargantuan western – one that would break new ground in
every aspect of the film making process. Unfortunately for William Fox, this
costly venture also broke his bank. With the fallout of the Great Depression
conspiring against him, the disastrous debacle that became The Big Trail forced Fox to divest his assets, effectively ousting
himself from the company that continues to bear his name.
On the other hand, and in
hindsight, The Big Trail is a
landmark. Arguably, nothing like it has been attempted since. Staggering were
the figures trumpeted by Fox’s publicity department: 20,000 extras, 1400
horses, 725 Native peoples belonging to 5 tribes, 500 head of buffalo, a
production staff of 200, 93 principle speaking parts and 22 cameramen. This
travelling caravan made their way through Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming
and California, lugging a cargo of 123 baggage trains over an arduous 4 month
shoot. To complicate matters further, The
Big Trail would be photographed six individual times; twice for the English
speaking version – once in Grandeur and then on standard 35mm film stock, then
once more for each of the French, German, Spanish and Italian versions to be
distributed in Europe with an entirely separate cast for each foreign version. Given
the logistics nightmare of this undertaking, it’s a small wonder that The Big Trail came in on a budget of $2
million.
Even more impressive is the
documentarian quality Walsh and his ensemble achieved. The Big Trail is a fictional story, scripted by Hal G. Evarts, Mary
Boyle, Jack Peabody, Florence Postal and Fred Sersen, and yet it looks more
like a living snapshot ripped from pages of American history. The screenplay
articulates the manifest destiny mythology; extolling the morality of the
puritan settler who braved the wilds and slaughtered savages to civilize the
American west. This grand narrative has since fallen out of favour for obvious
reasons, in that it illustrates a rather reckless disregard for the sanctity of
Native Americans who occupied the land long before the white European settler.
As such, when viewed today The Big Trail
represents two histories simultaneously; the one on the screen circa the late
1800s, and an unassuming, yet pervasive racial inequity behind the scenes that
permeated our early 20th century social morays and attitudes.
Our story concerns a
massive caravan of settlers making an arduous trek from Missouri to the Pacific
Northwest. Trapper Breck Coleman (John Wayne) has just returned from a sojourn
along the Santa Fe. He fills the apprehensive locals with fantastic stories of
his journey. But his optimism is tarnished by the death of an old friend the previous
winter. Suspecting murder at the hands of unscrupulous Red Flack (Tyrone Power
Sr.) and his henchman, Lopez (Charles Stevens – who was Geronimo’s grandson in
real life) Breck reluctantly agrees to scout the settler’s caravan west after
learning that Flack and Lopez are heading along the Oregon Trail.
Intent on avenging his
friend by murdering Flack and Lopez once they reach their destination, Breck
falls in love with Ruth Cameron (Marguerite Churchill), who denies her obvious
attraction to him after an accidental first kiss, and thereafter pursues, Bill Thorpe
(Ian Keith), a rather notorious Louisiana gambler who is also an acquaintance
of Flack. At every possible turn, Flack plots Breck’s demise. After all, the
wilderness is unforgiving. It would be so easy to make Flack’s murder look like
an accident. Indeed, the caravan endures some harrowing terrain, scaling steep
ravines, defending against violent Indian attacks, and crossing strong currents
in open waters that wash away several of the ox-drawn Conestoga wagons.
Breck is not so easily
defeated. Moreover, the various attempts on his life convince him that he has
found the killers of his former partner. Breck confronts Flack, Thorpe and
Lopez, forcing this motley crew to depart the wagon train and steal away into
the night. During a brutal winter Breck is determined to see the settler’s
through to their promised land. After establishing an outpost, Breck takes off
after Flack. Ruth, who cannot deny her feelings for Breck any longer, worries
that she has lost him forever.
Flack abandons an injured
Lopez in the snowy woods where he freezes to death He is stalked and confronted
by Breck who kills Flack with his knife. The following Spring Ruth is forlorn. Breck’s
loyal sidekick, Zeke (Tully Marshall) tells her that he has decided to leave
the valley because he prefers the wide open spaces to living within the settler’s
community. Actually, he’s just as distraught over Breck’s failure to return.
But then Zeke catches sight of his old friend approaching the outpost from the woods.
He encourages Ruth to go in search of ‘a surprise’ he’s hidden for her near the
first tree in the forest. She willingly follows his suggestion and is reunited
with Breck amidst the towering redwoods.
This fairly pedestrian
narrative aside, The Big Trail is a
monumental achievement. Its visual compositions are very contemporary, utilizing
all of Grandeur’s expansive film frame to its best advantage. Even so, The Big Trail cannot help but feel like
a silent movie, its awkward insertion of title cards to advance the story, and
its problematic ‘live’ audio recording in vast outdoor spaces without the
benefit of post-synced dialogue and effects, inhibit the movie from truly
coming to life as it should. And then, there is the acting to consider.
Virtually all of the principles
except John Wayne herald from the New York stage with its particular grand
style of pronounced gesturing and overly exaggerated speech. Wayne’s lack of stage experience seems more
naturalistic herein. But this isn’t the John Wayne we know from countless other
westerns made after The Big Trail.
The actor is still feeling his oats – awkwardly so. Although undeniably good to
look at – and looking every inch the rugged adventurer – he doesn’t make much
of a splash, leaving the film without a strong hero that the audience can
cheer.
These shortcomings alone
are enough to have sunk The Big Trail
at the time of its release. But perhaps what really did the film in was bad
timing. The Great Depression making it cost prohibitive to retool theaters with
the necessary projection equipment to showcase the Grandeur process, most
people only saw The Big Trail in its
standard 1:33:1 aspect ratio – restaged and re-shot with less enthusiasm for
its pictorial value. Viewed in standard, The
Big Trail is a subpar western with woefully undernourished performances. It
lacks originality and the breadth of that larger than life canvas that was, is
and will always remain the film’s greatest – and arguably, its only – selling feature.
At best, then, The Big Trail is a
supremely impressive failure.
Fox Home Video has made The Big Trail available on Blu-ray as a
Wal-mart exclusive. Oh boy, here we go again! You have to order the disc and
then have it delivered to a retail location in the U.S. only. Wal-marts in the
U.S. aren’t stocking it on their shelves. Wal-Marts in Canada can’t even get
it! So a film that already has a niche market audience gets an even more miniscule
opportunity to make breakout in hi-def consumer marketplace thanks to this painfully
limited distribution. Dumb! Really dumb!
There’s better news about
the transfer, however. While I’m not entirely convinced that this is a complete
1080p rescan – as opposed to a bumped up transfer from older digital files, the
elements used are very strong and very solid, the gray scale exhibiting
impressive tonality. Fine details are strikingly realized. Despite an
impressive restoration, age related artefacts are everywhere. For a film that
is over 80 years old these shortcomings are just par for the course and
actually, not terribly distracting, although very obvious.
The Grandeur version
is the preferred version, but Fox has also included the standard Academy ratio
edition for our consideration. Its image is not nearly as sharp or detailed for
obvious reasons; its 35mm to Grandeur’s infinitely superior 70mm. Take my
advice. Bypass the full frame version entirely. The audio on both exhibits a
woeful amount of hiss and pop. Again, it’s not the fault of the mastering, but
simply a faithful representation of the inadequacies of early sound recording.
Extras include everything
that was available on Fox’s lavish 2 disc DVD set from 2008; truncated
featurettes on John Wayne, Raoul Walsh, the making of the film and the Grandeur
process with some fairly informative commentary by historians and film makers
alike. Good stuff. Fox pads out this offering with a DVD copy of the Grandeur
version only. Bottom line: recommended for the diehard film historian.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
3.5
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