Nothing So Far Was So Big
Does a red flag become less red once hoisted? The Fox Corporation was tentative raising theirs for big-spent The Big Trail in August 1930, most aware Fox had this time gone a bridge too far. James Granger, “Jimmy” to showman pals across the USA, was distribution whiz for the company. What he didn’t know about sales was not worth knowing. Jimmy had been handed a big elephant that had cost his employers “in excess of $2,000,000,” so he was told, and for all he knew, maybe The Big Trail really did. Certainly it was elephantine for using a wide frame process few theatres could be expected to utilize, but that was engineering’s problem. Jim was for getting The Big Trail into conventional theatres and raking off “fair return” which he and managers knew meant ruinous percentage of what came through double doors. He loathed to use dreaded “Roadshow” terminology, for this was by 1930 a profanity among exhibitors, another word for withholding product until it was stale, a biggest house having exclusive access until the attraction no longer attracted. No, Fox would let go The Big Trail on grind or whatever basis, letting individual exhibitors rely upon their own judgment. This sounded fine in principle, but wiser eyes saw code Granger used to let them know policy would be painful, so in essence, prepare to pay dear if you want The Big Trail. Granger’s Paragraph Two rang an alarm bell: “The Big Trail will be shown solely on percentage and the writer feels confident that every fair-minded exhibitor will be only too glad to give to Fox Film Corporation equitable terms to enable us to show a fair return on this huge investment.” Such a declaration flew in the face of naturally suspicious showmen who first of all wondered if Fox really spent two million on The Big Trail. Was this merely a first of many misleads their natural enemy was planting?
Doubters were right of course as The Big Trail had actually cost $1.7 million, but puffery being expected made that at least forgivable. What rankled was Granger pretending to deplore roadshows while he reached deep into management pockets for what he hoped would be as-extravagant rentals. This after all was 1930, a still good year thanks to ongoing novelty of talkies, though uncertain because what would ultimate effect of the ’29 Crash be? The Big Trail seemed to many like a wrong extravagance for cautious times, and besides, it had no meaningful stars. When you rely upon El Brendel to fill seats, what is good of two million behind this or any venture? If Fox had sure things, they were Gaynor/Farrell, Flagg/Quirt, maybe George O’Brien in action. The Big Trail was a long chance as Just Imagine was also for that year, but Fox never shrank from a long chance, having pioneered sound when only Warner among rivals was willing to do so. “How Fox Helps the Showman” reads a November 1930 trade ad, Iowa having been a site where “all records for business were broken.” A lavish pressbook was credited for helping make this possible, plus Midwest natural interest in a frontier saga lavishly told. The Big Trail rose or fell largely on terms of territory. At some places it broke enormous. Others, it just broke. Cheerleading came largely from circuit heads doing regular business with Fox Film Corp and wanting always to grease that relationship. Not that they would outright lie, for plain evidence would easy enough reveal that, but putting good as possible face on product was fair so far as they and benefactors with Fox viewed it. Smaller showmen in meantime realized too well that big boys would always stick together.
Complaint was heard re ticket prices, for they had crept up. “First-run theatres charge anywhere from fifty cents to one dollar and sixty five cents for regular pictures,” said Pete Harrison of his Reports, him speculating further as to “Why the Child Trade Had Been Lost.” Pete blamed “Filthy Pictures” (what we lovingly refer to as precode) among other abuses, feared state and local censorship would ramp up to levels where no film would be spared a chop block. The Big Trail represented hope, its Oregon Trail a cleaner avenue for children to travel. They showed liking for westerns in any case, added Motion Picture News on 10/4/30, The Big Trail up youth’s alley, voting block which Harrison said had much to do with what picture families might choose. Fox had clicked with a George O’ Brien, The Lone Star Ranger, which took $729K on $282K spent. “This type of program will continue in the ascendancy during the new season,” the News expecting The Big Trail “to bring on big outdoor pictures built along road show lines from every major studio on the coast.” Were trade magazines vessels for hope, or a source increasingly disbelieved? At least Pete Harrison spoke plainer, as was his habit. Youngsters were in fact estopped by talkies “to give vent to … feelings,” Harrison felt screen chat “interferes with their emotional outburst” as healthily expressed during past westerns where screens kept silent so kids could react boisterously. We’ve had sound far too long now to realize this among so much sweeping change talkies brought, but even if The Big Trail answered fully a need to restore outdoor action back to forefronts, still there was alleged two million to recover, and junior tickets would not by themselves achieve that.
Fox had already given up ghosts of road showing and wide exhibition on wide, wide screens. Practicalities as forcefully expressed by exhibitors put kibosh to that, as who’d pay for retrofit of theatres? Roadshows had been discredited by distributors thinking they could label everything a roadshow and advance prices accordingly. Such format was poison oak by latter 1930 months when The Big Trail was ready, so Fox stood down without argument, its only roadshow set for Grauman’s in Hollywood, and enlarged frames seen only there and at the Roxy in New York. Precious few beyond coasts saw The Big Trail on spectacular terms as envisioned by makers, so why asked many should Fox have bothered with the cumbersome process to begin with? Blame BBB, that is decisions made during Boom Before Bust, time preceding the October 1929 Crash which none but the most perceptive saw coming, but which effect chilled ambitious notions of any sort to further revolutionize movies. Still there was bigness in terms of landscape for The Big Trail to sell, and no one denied impression of that, plus clear hardship suffered in production of it. Reviews were lush with praise, at least ones excerpted by Fox for trade ads. Where sour note was struck was in notices at the two wide venues, critics noting that imagery was too wide for eyes to fully take in, anyone outside sweet seating at a distinct disadvantage. Sitting too close, or at extreme right or left, was ruinous to the experience of seeing The Big Trail or any other of “Grandeur” presentations. One could as easily dust off these notices twenty years later when Cinerama, then later Cinemascope, came along to fight wide wars again.
Films were the more admired where shot under hardship conditions. By miracle of chance, home movies of The Big Trail on location, hours of them, turned up on You Tube via archivist Jeff Joseph. They are stunning evidence that indeed these ’30 pioneers knew harsh nature much as forbears, even if supported by Fox-supplied chuck wagons more like super markets on wheels. Raoul Walsh as director is shown at work, supremely relaxed under daily pressure, obliged to stage harshest conditions of overland travel which meant he and cast/crew had to relive hard times w/o benefit of fakery that would see jobs modernly through. There is lowering wagons off sheer cliffs, fording angry rivers, pushing through mud like quicksand, Walsh the while rolling another cigarette as though he'd done all this and more over a hazard-laden so far career. Fan magazines breathlessly recounted the odyssey. Readers respected more those filmmakers that walked the walk. “Not one scene … shot in a studio” they said, “14,000 miles traversed seeking locations.” Walsh being hardiest of modern pioneers “traveled by dogsled through the Blackfeet country, over snows twenty feet deep.” Sounds like whoppers the veteran would himself tell in retirement, but essence of all was true … there was steel on his part that no modern maker could readily duplicate. Fourteen-hour workdays were the norm. “Just a bed and stove,” and on good days electricity in the wild. We may criticize The Big Trail for pace or dramatic failings, much aspect dated sure, but not for a moment should mere finish of such a massive job be underestimated. How they did it, let alone how it could be done today, makes for ongoing astonishment.
Business terrific here might prove flaccid there. An engagement coming out like stampedes could as readily retire in quiet. McVicker’s Theatre in Chicago never saw such crowds for a first week, nor ones more absent for a third. Trouble for any attraction during the Classic Era was so many other attractions bidding for play time and audience engagement. If The Big Trail was so special, why not hundreds of others vying for leisure coin? That last was a bugaboo, as where was leisure save that bestowed by unemployment, itself on increase as The Big Trail played into 1931. What if new-minted star John Wayne did appear in your town dressed in buckskins? Others of broad-defined celebrity might do a same and on same days, for publicity shoveled a mighty load to that crowded marketplace, and like on the Oregon trail itself, only the strongest survived. Wayne found that out for himself, The Big Trail no kickstart to stardom, his lot for nearly a next ten years either cheap westerns for minors or bit parts at majors. No wonder he’d grow hard bark it took to survive in a pitiless business. Raoul Walsh later took credit for discovering Wayne, The Big Trail a “first picture” for the youngster, notion which made John Ford see red, this part-cause for Ford snubbing Wayne for long haul till mercy called Stagecoach came in 1939. For The Big Trail there was final accounting of $945K in domestic rentals, with $242K foreign, actually very good numbers for Fox given fact this was 1930-31. The million that was lost may be chalked entirely to fortune that was spent, failure forgot as The Big Trail flourishes still for marvel of pushing such odyssey through, a frontier recount most like what we imagine frontier’s reality to have been.
John Wayne does not perform well as an actor in TBT. Wayne does the physical aspects of his role quite well, but the character depth was lacking.
ReplyDeleteWayne was subsequently sent to the cinema salt mines where he learned to act good enough to become one of America's biggest film stars.
I waited literally decades to see this film since reading about it in THE FILMS OF JOHN WAYNE. I was shocked to see that John Wayne had acted well below the level he had past STAGECOACH.
In eastern Colorado in the mid sixties it was conventional wisdom that John Wayne was America's most favorite movie star. The first movie I remember seeing in a cinema was WAR WAGON.
The issue with this tfilm is that they didn't know how to sell it in the United States. The fact that its Spanish language version was actually a box office success to the point that the English version was also exhibited in Spain but as a silent film! The fact that the Fox Film Corporation after The Big Trail eventually produced a series of Spanish language films is a fact ignored by all film historians.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought the casting of John Wayne in both THE BIG TRAIL and later STAGECOACH interesting, if not downright curious. In TBT he plays Breck Coleman, a seasoned and experienced scout, a role much in line with the stuff the actor did regularly as a mature star. Remember he was only 23-ish working on that one! Almost a decade later Ford cast him as the Ringo KID, a character the script would have us believe is more than a little naive in the ways of civilization, a part one might think more suitable for an actor younger than Wayne's then mid-thirties. In the case of Ford's picture, nobody cared about that discrepancy at all!
ReplyDeleteJohn Wayne in THE BIG TRAIL is basically Fearless Fred in the Betty Boop cartoons. In STAGECOACH he is the good bad guy. MARVEL COMICS had a long running comic starring the RINGO KID. That where I first saw the name. As William S. Hart knew and Clint Eastwood discovered nothing succeeds with the public like an outlaw on the right side of humanity (which the law mostly isn't). This is why Billy the Kid endures as a hero while the name of the lawman who shot him in the back is largely forgotten. To make the part work John Ford needed an actor the public could see as the part not the actor. He knew that in John Wayne he had the man. ROADSHOWS made the movies. D. W. Griffith raised the trade to an Art when he Roadshowed THE BIRTH OF A NATION art legit theatre prices. People walked excited. They walked out excited. Yes, the film is controversial. Controversy is the life blood of show-business, book publishing, everything. To generate it our work must be attacked forcefully by people who hate it.
ReplyDeleteI finally got around to watching "The Big Trail" last month on TCM. Technically, it's extraordinarily impressive for its time, especially since each scene was filmed in different languages with different actors. And while it's great to see Wayne so young (and healthy), I didn't find him very good. (Don't get me started on El Brendel.)
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, that week I watched "The Searchers" for the first time -- a terrific movie, and Wayne was first rate. It reminded me of a movie critic -- Pauline Kael? -- who said John Wayne was a great actor, but only in John Ford movies.
Thus column motivated me to watch my widescreen BluRay. I'm glad I did. Given that Wayne was only 23, I think his awkwardness can be expected, if not forgiven. Perhaps George O'Brien could have carried it off better. And considering he later married Marguerite Churchill, wouldn't that have been something for us film buffs? Less Brendel would have been okay by me. I forgot Louise Carver was in it. I half expected Charlie Murray to turn up! Tyrone Power, even if he'd lived, wasn't likely to give William Farnum any worries. Even Ian Keith, who could Snidely Whiplash with the best of them (see his JW Booth in ABRAHAM LINCOLN) gave a better performance than Power.
ReplyDeleteI recently rewatched The Searcher and for the life of me I can’t see why it’s regarded as the best western of all time. I don’t care for westerns in general, but I find both Stagecoach and Red River to be far superior.
ReplyDeleteHad the same minority reaction to Vertigo — one more shot of Jimmy Stuart driving around San Fransisco looking confused and I was gonna take a hostage.
Unlike what I have been reading so far, I actually feel like John Wayne's performance is excellent and he delivers what The Big Trail needed.
ReplyDeleteWhat nobody is writing, nor they will never do it, is how George Lewis did in the Spanish language version of this film. And this is important: this version was the box office success that the "original" was not. Lewis is only remembered by his great performance in the Zorro television show, but this film was a landmark.
Too bad that we won't see that version. Stagecoach is good, and Red River is still overrated despite that Joanne Dru spoils the film and provides a lousy ending to the ending.
Thanks for highlighting this film. Any availability of the widescreen version? Also, it would be good to highlight the widescreen version of "Danger Lights (1930). Does this exist?
ReplyDeleteTHE BIG TRAIL was issued in a BluRay/DVD combo pack and each disc included the standard and widescreen versions (this is the edition I have; I believe it's now out of print). You should be able to find used copies for sale through the usual retailers. The film has been repackaged several times by Fox in various Wayne collections; I haven't been able to determine if it's in widescreen or the standard version. It seems logical that both would be on one disc, but caveat emptor.
ReplyDeleteI like this movie a lot; I've only seen the widescreen version starring John Wayne. It looks great on my home theater big screen - and I found its old-school dramatics charming too.
ReplyDeleteMuch like Reg Hartt above, I too was reminded of old-time animations while watching this film: I found the villain to be much like Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons, though this did not detract in any way from my enjoyment of the film.
@Filmfanman: Yes! That's an excellent comparison. I hadn't thought of that, but it's right on the nose. He's also reminiscent of Noah Beery, except he's playing it straight. It kind of shows the fallacy of Hollywood calling for stage actors when talkies began. They played to the back row.
ReplyDeleteRichard M. Roberts considers THE BIG TRAIL:
ReplyDeleteJohn,
Well, you can thank Bluto for those amazing home movies of THE BIG TRAIL, if you notice how much Tyrone Power Sr. is in that footage you realize that those were his home movies. In fact, one can also wonder if his son Ty Jr. went along on location and filmed them, he would have been sixteen at the time.
And one definitely has to disagree with Pauline Kael (an easy thing to do, she was clueless) that John Wayne was only a good actor in John Ford films, actually a number of his best performances are in other Directors films, he's terrific in William Wellman's ISLAND IN THE SKY (1953), he even cries in it. And some of Wayne's best performances appear to be in films directed by Henry Hathaway. Duke won his only Oscar for TRUE GRIT (1969) and if you want to see a terrific early Wayne performance take a look at SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS (1941) sometime, that's a very underrated and not so well known film that also has a powerhouse performance by Harry Carey Sr.
And then there's that RED RIVER thing, Howard Hawks directed that don't forget, and Wayne's work in that even made John Ford say, "Who knew Duke could act!"
John Wayne was actually a very good actor, who also worked hard to hone a persona that kept him a superstar for 30-plus years, but if you've ever read any of the letters he tended to write to Directors on his current pictures regarding how he saw the characters he was playing, you see that he was in fact very thoughtful in terms of how he played them and the subtle inflections and differences he gave them within the limitations of that persona. He was careful not to stray too far from what the public wanted to see him in, but he still capable of adding dimension and different tone to the characters from film to film. This is why we still watch them.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
I would add HONDO to that list, described as the best John Wayne film not directed by Ford or Hawks.
ReplyDelete