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

Review - Queen Kelly

 February 5, 2021

 Queen Kelly – US, 1929

In Stephen Michael Shearer’s book Gloria Swanson, an entire chapter is devoted to Swanson’s unfinished film Queen Kelly. The chapter itself is fascinating, but one particular part came to mind as I watched the film. In one of the film’s most important scenes – the first meeting between the handsome and playful Prince Wolfram (Walter Bryon) and the spunky commoner Patricia “Kitty” Kelly (Swanson) – the film’s director, Erich von Stroheim, made an unusual request of Bryon. In the scene, the Prince is leading his platoon on a routine exercise when they pass a procession of young ladies from a local convent. One in particular catches his eye. On any other occasion, he would probably put on the charm and delight in making the young lady blush and smile, but on this day, he notices that the young lady’s underwear has fallen down, and he is overcome by a serious case of the giggles. After expressing a gamut of emotions, Kelly settles on anger and hurls the exposed garments at the unsuspecting prince. In the take referenced in Shearer’s book, the prince brought them to his face and smelled them. Needless to say, that did not make the final cut.

And yet, the action would have been more in keeping with a character like Wolfram. Wolfram is a playboy trapped in what looks to be an arranged engagement with a brutally oppressive queen that he has no feeling for whatsoever. More to the point, he’s someone whose idea of a romantic reunion involves starting a potentially deadly fire, using chloroform as a substitute for sweet serenades, and making sure that the woman he has supposedly fallen for has nothing to wear but her nighties. At the very least, these actions hint at a rather perverse idea of courtship. Now imagine the impression that would have been made had he actually put the lady’s undergarments to his nose and become instantly intoxicated.

Alas, that is not the film that either Swanson, who financed the picture as part of her deal with United Artists, or Stroheim had in mind. For his part, Stroheim envisioned a five-hour epic, one that followed Kelly’s journey from naïve youngster to jaded adult, and it would have ended with Kelly perplexingly assuming the throne. However, Swanson, according the film’s Wikipedia page, felt misled by Stroheim’s script and was uncomfortable with the parts of the film set in the Tanzanian city Dar es Salaam. The rift was apparently unresolvable, and Stroheim was fired. It would be the last directing job he ever received.

And so, unable to complete his vision, we are left with an unwise courtship, a violent punishment, and a tragic decision that reflects the reality of the social norms at the time of the film’s release. From there, we get fragments: stills of a letter announcing a sick relative and a long journey by sea, followed by scenes in which Kelly finds herself in the same position as her royal amour. From there, we get references to Stroheim’s script and the complete turnaround that would have occurred in Kelly’s character, and it is perfectly clear that Stroheim intended for the film to be an epic

 Fortunately, there’s a lot to admire about Stroheim’s efforts here. First, the character of Patricia Kelly is an interesting one, and Stroheim elicits some amazing emotional moments from Swanson, ones in which she is asked to display a range of conflicting emotions. We can see each one and recognize their progression. In one scene, she perfectly conveys the dread and shock of a woman who has incurred the wrath of a jealous and violent queen. The result is a tough scene to watch. Stroheim also gets a terrific performance from Bryon. Playing the cad, the naturally alluring Bryon infuses the character with charm and wit, making it perfectly sensible that women would keep picture postcards of him under their pillows. Matching them is the indelible Seena Owen, who plays Queen Regina V. She makes it perfectly understandable that Wolfram would not be able simply to walk away from the engagement, and her facial expressions are the stuff of nightmares.

Ultimately, Swanson’s instincts were correct: Under Stroheim’s direction, the film veers into questionable territory, and not simply because what develops seems superfluous to the main plot. The first hour depicts an unwise and unresolved courtship. Conventional wisdom says to stick with that story line, yet under Stroheim’s direction, Kelly was to have been married off to Jan Vryheid (hammily-played by Tully Marshall), one of the most overtly lecherous characters ever to grace the silver screen. Just what Kelly’s aunt sees in him that makes her think he would be a suitable husband is anyone’s guess. And that would not have been the end of Kelly’s misery.

It would also not have provided an adequate resolution to the film’s love story, for Kelly and Wolfram have known each other for just two days, and few of their conversations are the kind from which he could realistically conclude that he’d found his soul mate. In an attempt to salvage the film, Swanson filmed a brief ending, and to her credit, it more than adequately completes Kelly and Wolfram’s story. This was the ending audiences in Europe and South America saw when the film was finally released in 1932. It would be more than twenty years before audiences in the United States were afforded the same opportunity.

To watch it today is to see a divided film. It is clear that Swanson wanted a Shakespearean love story, while Stroheim wanted a much more perverse and fractured fairy tale. The differing visions ultimately hurt the project. While the personalities of Kelly and the Queen remain consistent, Wolfram’s is all over the place. Does he love Kelly? Certainly not at first, and believing that he suddenly does requires a certain degree of amnesia on the audience’s part. Still, we feel for Kelly, and we grow to want a better life for the Prince. So, it works. It just needed another thirty minutes to develop their relationship more fully and for the film to end without the African journey. Swanson got that. (on DVD from Kino)

3 stars (Stroheim’s version)
3 and a half stars (Swanson’s version)

Review - The Covered Wagon

March 23, 2018

The Covered Wagon – US, 1923

Sometimes a film is more important historically than it is qualitatively. Perhaps it is the first film of a director later regarded as a cinematic genius or the screen debut of someone later considered to be one of cinema’s greatest leading ladies. In the case of The Covered Wagon, it is its status as Hollywood’s “first big budget Western epic,” and for that, it has rightfully earned a place in the rather long list of influential films. However, I highly doubt it will appear on anyone’s list of the greatest films of all time or even for the year in which it was released. I base this notion entirely on one thing: the film’s particularly weak and banal narrative.

Seen through the eyes of audiences in 1923, the film must have been somewhat of a revelation. There, on screen before them, was a trek across hostile and unforgiving terrain, a duel with Mother Nature, and a race to stave off both starvation and the madness that generally accompanies a journey of this sort. Director James Cruze includes moments that I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of – the realization that the journey will take the settlers across a long, deep, fast-moving river, through punishing winter months, and in the crosshairs of those hell-bent on preventing them from tearing apart their land with the plow, a device that is spoken of as being pure evil. That Cruze films some of these scenes from a distance and without the right amount of drama or emotion speaks of both the infancy of the genre and, I can only surmise, the continuing development of Cruze as a director. (He had made at least 18 films prior to The Covered Wagon, none of which I’ve seen, and had been appearing onscreen since 1911. A scene in which he appeared as an American Indian in The Covered Wagon ended up on the cutting room floor.)

The Covered Wagon attempts to tell two tales concurrently. The first – and by far more interesting one – is the story of the West’s early settlers, ordinary people who took on a truly extraordinary task. From this storyline, we learn of the size of the caravans that made the journey and that many of them did not make it to the promised land. Some turned back after getting a true sense of the monstrous task in front of them; others perished from hunger or sickness, and it was up to those chosen to lead the expedition to inspire confidence in his followers that the journey would be worth it in the end. In one scene, we learn that the caravan only travels twelve miles a day, making their journey from modern-day Kansas City to Oregon one that will take them at least 137 days to complete. Think about that for a moment.

The first’s second narrative will be nothing new to contemporary moviegoers, for they are likely accustomed to seeing historical events through the eyes of young lovers. Wings did this for World War I, as did J’Accuse; Pearl Harbor did it for World War II, just as For Whom the Bell Tolls did for the Spanish Civil War. To this category, we could also add Titanic. For the plot device to work, the relationship must be given ample screen time to grow and mature. We should see them meet, hear their awkward first encounters, and recognize the first signs of love. Then we should be able to ascertain just how much they are meant to be together and how lost they will be if they are ever separated. The Covered Wagon denies us many of these. Sure, we get a few furtive glances and some scenes of dialogue between the two, but nothing that makes you declare their relationship to be a love that cannot be denied or that would justify the abandoning of one engagement for the chance of another.

The two characters in question are Will Banian (J. Warren Kerrigan) and Molly Wingate (Lois Wilson). When the film begins, Molly is engaged to Sam Woodhull (Alan Hale), though for the life of me I cannot figure out why. Will, with his dashing good looks, superb fighting skills, and genuine concern for humankind, easily catches Molly’s attention, and Sam vows to put an end to Will’s life because of it. And that, in a nutshell, is that. This storyline has so little going for it that it introduces two side characters who seem to be there just for levity, Will’s right-hand man William Jackson (Ernest Torrence) and a trader named Jim Bridger (Tully Marshall). I found William the more interesting of the characters, simply because he has moments in which you wonder just how much ruthlessness he is capable of while also proving himself to be as loyal a friend to Will as anyone could ever imagine. I had more reservations about Joe. The character is neither necessary nor appropriate. In a film about people in constant peril, it just seems wrong to be asked to laugh at drunken hijinks.

I wanted to like The Covered Wagon, to praise it to high heaven and declare it to be not simply an original, but also a genuinely brilliant standard-bearer for the genre. Sadly, I cannot proclaim the later. The film has its fair share of powerful moments, but too many of those concern the fate of the caravan and not that of Will, Molly, or Sam. It reminded me of Gangs of New York in that regard, for in that movie too the back story resonated far more than its main narrative. When The Covered Wagon focused on the group and their collective struggles, I was riveted. When it pointed its lens at the love triangle, I found myself distracted, and my mind eventually began to wander. And just where did it wander to? To the story I wished I was seeing – to the confusion, the desperation, the true toll of the journey on the psyche of the travelers, and to those lives lost and those entering the world under the harshest of conditions. That’s the story I wanted to see. What I got was something that is now considered routine and unoriginal. Sometimes a love story just gets in the way. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Lorber)

2 and a half stars 

Review - The Devil's Needle

November 20, 2014

Devil’s Needle, The – US, 1916

Oh, to be the muse of a great artist, to be the inspiration of an epic poem, a memorable piece of literature, or even a hit pop song. It is a glorious thing – or at least that’s what people have been led to believe. It is this erroneous belief that causes Dorothea Brooke to marry Edward Casaubon in George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Victoria Page to give up being a dancer in Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes, and as these two tales demonstrate, it doesn’t always work out. Genius comes and goes, it starts and stops, and rarely can one person be the locomotion that drives ingenuity forevermore. Just what happens when the muse no longer inspires and a once confident genius finds himself at a loss for new ideas? In too many cases, he does what John Minturn does in Chester Withey’s audacious The Devil’s Needle – he looks for a new form of “inspiration.”

The Devil’s Needle is the story of a love affair interrupted by drug addiction, and it is a rather remarkable achievement. In the film, Minturn, played by Tully Marshall, is a frustrated artist looking for a new model that will somehow get his creative juices flowing again. “Frustrated” is probably an understatement, for at times he appears to be one the verge of a mental breakdown. In fact, I half expected him to start yanking out his hair at any moment. His normal muse is a young lady named Renee Duprez (Norma Talmadge). Renee has a pleasant, easygoing personality but is a bit too lackadaisical for an artist like Minturn. She frustrates Minturn to no end, but always manages to win him over with her charm and youthful energy. The problem is that her energy runs out quickly, and it is rapidly replaced by a degree of nervousness that is startling. To get her through these moments, she frequently turns to morphine.

Minturn has an admirer named Patricia Devan (Marguerite Marsh) who is engaged to Gordon Galloway (Howard Gaye). Galloway is the kind of person who makes all the preparations for a wedding before asking his girlfriend to marry him. To him, it is inconceivable that she would ever say no, especially after her father has already given his blessing. In an early scene, Galloway sees Patricia posing for one of Minturn’s pictures and is utterly disgusted. Decent women simply didn’t do that sort of thing back then. Patricia’s father goes one step further, urging Gordon to marry her at once before she completes her fall from grace. Back in his studio, Minturn discovers Renee’s dirty secret and chastises her for it. She in turn extols the many benefits of morphine, even using that oft-repeated line about the drug’s ability to inspire and increase one’s artistic visions. Minturn decides to see for himself.

The film is anchored by two strong performances: those of Marshall and Talmadge. Marshall has the more challenging role, for he must realistically portray Minturn at three stages of mental breakdown. He must show him to be nervous and worried early on, thereby establishing the mental anguish that could cause someone to turn to drugs as a way of coping. Then he must portray a victim of drug addiction at a time when movies tended to have rather exaggerated ideas of just what drug addiction looked like. (Think Bigger than Life and Reefer Madness, made just 13 years later.) And despite occasional moments of over-exaggeration, he performs admirably. Finally, Marshall must convey to viewers the existence of a new John Minturn, of being someone both mentally and physically stronger after his recovery. In this, Marshall also succeeds. Talmadge is called on to do slightly less, yet she is also able to competently convey the differences in her character during her addiction and after, and what she does in key moments in the film would likely have earned her academy award consideration had the film been made a decade later.

There is an odd subplot involving an illegal saloon and a major misjudgment, and for quite a while, I felt this was an unnecessary addition to the film. However, by the end, it seemed entirely appropriate and even somewhat logical to include it, even if there is little evidence earlier in the film of Minturn’s being as heroic as he is shown in the film’s latter moments. There is also the undeveloped matter of the cause of Renee’s addiction. She is referred to as having been a nurse during a war, and the film could have had something pertinent to say about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. However, the film does not develop this storyline, and in my opinion, it is a missed opportunity.

There is also the little matter of Minturn’s age. Marshall, who was born in Nevada City, where I spend much of my childhood, was fifty-eight when he made the film, and it takes a moment to accept the fact that the woman who loves him is so much younger. (Marsh was around 34, but looked somewhat younger.) However, in the world of artists and muses, such relationships are not entirely uncommon.

The Devil’s Needle is a testament to the talent and skill of its cast and crew, and it remains an effective film. The film marked the directorial debut of actor Chester Withey. Withey had appeared in 82 films before directing The Devil’s Needle, and he directed 32 films post-Needle. From The Devil’s Needle, it is clear that he had a knack for it. Talmadge made over a hundred and sixty movies throughout her career and was one of the casualties of Hollywood’s move from silent films to talking pictures. As for Marshall, he is credited with appearing in 195 films from 1914 to 1943. These are amazing accomplishments, and I look forward to seeing more of their cinematic accomplishments. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

3 and a half stars