Review - The Big Trail

March 1, 2026
 
The Big Trail – U.S., 1930
 

Prior to making Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail, John Wayne had appeared in twenty-one films. That may sound impressive, yet in most of these he had been uncredited, playing characters with undistinguished monikers such as Lumberjack, Football Player, and Radioman on Surface. He had paid his dues, though, having started as a prop man and then earning an opportunity to appear in front of the camera. The Big Trail was supposed to be his big breakout. It isn’t hard to see why it wasn’t.
 
The Big Trail simply tries to do too much too quickly, and in doing so, it loses focus of its most interesting dramatic arc. On one level, it is a classic revenge tale. In the film, Wayne plays Breck Coleman, a young fur trader looking to avenge his former partner after he is murdered and their animal pelts stolen. On another, it is a romance. Early in the film Breck meets Ruth Cameron (Marguerite Churchill), a young woman traveling with her two siblings, and while their introduction will never be mistaken for love-at-first-sight (he kisses her thinking she is someone else), we’ve seen enough movies to know that adversarial feelings can change, especially when perilous circumstances are involved. Finally, The Big Trail is a dramatic adventure film, following a caravan of settlers as they make the hazardous journey from the banks of Mississippi over rivers, deserts, and slopping mountains, all in pursuit of better lives in the undeveloped West.

 
With three storylines operating concurrently, it’s crucial for the film to find the right pace in order to enable the investigation and the romance to develop naturally as the caravan moves along. For example, different circumstances along the journey could bring Breck into contact with new individuals, one of which would eventually utter something that raises his suspicion. This could happen at the same time as Breck works to correct Ruth’s initial impression of him. The film’s screenwriters, Marie Boyle, Jack Peabody, and Florence Postal, working on a story by Hal G. Evarts, however, take a different approach. In the first ten minutes, before the caravan even begins its adventure, they have Breck come across a clue implicating Red Flack (Tyrone Power), the leader of the caravan, as the prime suspect. Now, in such a situation, should Breck bide his time, observe his surroundings, investigate further, or should be confront Red immediately and put him on notice that he is on to him? If you answered the former, you have much more impulse control than either Breck or the film’s screenwriters.
 
And it isn’t just Breck that has this problem. The screenplay gives few characters any subtly. For much of the film’s first thirty minutes, the conversations that characters engage in are entirely too expository. Characters explain their backgrounds, their intentions – both pure and self-serving, their roles on the upcoming journey, and their deceptions, and this robs the film of any potential suspense it might have otherwise been able to build. Fortunately, from the screenwriters’ perspectives at least, this leads ample time for the introduction of stock comic characters, such as Gus (El Brendel), an immigrant with a mother-in-law from hell; Zeke (Tully Marshall), the stock wise elderly character who speaks in at a slightly high-pitched voice and laughs at awkward moments, such as when Gus’s wagon rolls down a cliff; and Windy Bill (Russ Powell), who in numerous scenes hides behind wagon covers making cat calls. Zeke plays an important role later in the film, but neither of the other two adds anything to it, and removing them would have greatly improved the tone.
 
Nothing is allowed to simmer or develop in the film. In the same scene, Breck goes from questioning one of the people he suspects in his partner’s murder to immediately getting contradictory information from the other suspect, and then after Breck leaves, the two suspects have a conversation in which they admit to being worthy of Breck’s suspicion. In another scene, Breck learns that the Cameron family has been left behind because their wagon was immovable. Breck gets one his horse, rides to them, unhooks one wagon, and drives them back to the convoy. No difficulty, no drama. Even the film’s finale is anticlimactic, lasting mere seconds and building little in the way or tension or anticipation.
 
Part of what holds The Big Trail back is the performance of its lead, John Wayne. Wayne may have had a lot of experience in film by this stage in his career, but he seems to have reverted back to more amateurish techniques. He speaks far too quickly, and this prevents his characters thoughts from fully being expressed or for the audience to get the full impact of his words. For instance, in one scene, he describes a valley the he saw during his adventures, one that he thinks would be an ideal place for a settlement, yet he speaks so rapidly that the beauty and potential of what he is describing is lost. In another, he rallies the convoy with a speech in which he declares, “We’re building a nation!” yet the rapidity in which he utters his words do not allow his audience to express how stirred they are by them. And in his scenes with Ruth, when the moment calls for Breck to slow down and try to get his feelings across, Wayne rushes his words, and we can hardly fault Ruth for not being moved in the slightest. Wayne would eventually course correct, but it is hard not to feel that at this stage in his career, he was wrong for the very kind of role he would later excel at.
 
If there is one thing that works in The Big Trail, it is the narrative of the journey itself, the trek West in pursuit of something greater. There is real drama in the settlers’ battle against the elements, in their engagements with the Native Americans, which the film has varied success with, in the ever-present threat of death, in the daily maneuvering of the diverging landscapes, and ultimately in the realization that success, however costly, is upon them. At one point, the settlers, having survived an attack, bury their dead, and looking at the makeshift cemetery they erect and then abandon, I couldn’t help wondering how many such burial sites have existed over time. It is this aspect of the film that enables Walsh to demonstrate his directorial skills. The rest of the film is an ill-fated mix of speed and pauses, of rushed and unearned emotions, and of grand speeches that fail to land. In other words, The Big Trail is a big miss. (on DVD and Blu-ray)
 
2 stars