Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Starring: John Wayne, Marguerite Churchill, El Brendel, Tully Marshall, Tyrone Power Sr., David Rollins

STORY

Before John Wayne became John Wayne, he was Marion “Duke” Morrison — a lanky young man working around movie sets as a prop man, stuntman, extra and bit player. Then director Raoul Walsh saw something in him. At only 23 years old, Morrison was handed his first starring role as Breck Coleman in the enormously ambitious Western epic The Big Trail. The young actor who had spent years around the edges of the frame was suddenly expected to carry one of Fox's biggest productions.
Breck Coleman is a young trapper who agrees to help lead a massive wagon train of pioneers west toward Oregon. The journey is dangerous and unforgiving. The settlers battle brutal terrain, treacherous river crossings, snow, hunger and the sheer physical challenge of moving families, animals and covered wagons across an untamed continent. But Breck has another reason for making the journey. He is searching for the men responsible for the murder of an old friend, and his pursuit of justice gradually becomes intertwined with the fate of the wagon train and his growing feelings for Ruth Cameron.
The Big Trail is more than an early Western. It captures a young actor standing at the beginning of one of the most recognizable careers in movie history. Wayne had not yet developed every mannerism and characteristic audiences would eventually associate with “The Duke,” but the raw ingredients are already there: the physical presence, the easy confidence, the humor, the toughness and the ability to command the screen. AIN celebrates independent filmmakers and performers who are given the opportunity to show what they can do. The Big Trail preserves one of those extraordinary moments — somebody finally took a chance on the tall, skinny kid who had been working behind the scenes and around the edges of Hollywood. And audiences got their first real look at John Wayne.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS

A POWER BEFORE TYRONE POWER
Long before Tyrone Power became one of Hollywood's great leading men, his father, Tyrone Power Sr., was already an established actor of stage and screen. In The Big Trail, Power Sr. plays the villainous Red Flack opposite a 23-year-old John Wayne—putting two generations of Hollywood history into one remarkable early Western.

The Big Trail was Tyrone Power Sr.'s final completed feature film. He died in December 1931 at only 62, while working on The Miracle Man.

BEFORE JOHN WAYNE WAS JOHN WAYNE
Marion “Duke” Morrison had already spent several years learning the movie business from the ground up. He worked as a prop man, stagehand, stuntman, extra and minor player and had appeared in small roles before The Big Trail. Director Raoul Walsh saw potential in the young Morrison and cast him as Breck Coleman — his first starring role.

A STAR — AND A NAME — ARE BORN
The Big Trail didn't merely introduce Morrison as a leading man. It introduced movie audiences to John Wayne. During this period, the studio gave Marion Morrison the professional name that would eventually become one of the most famous names in Hollywood.

HE WAS ONLY 23
John Wayne was just 23 years old when The Big Trail was released. He was being asked to lead an enormous, technically ambitious production despite having never carried a major motion picture before.

HOLLYWOOD TOOK A VERY BIG CHANCE
Raoul Walsh originally considered established stars for Breck Coleman, including Tom Mix and Gary Cooper. When they were unavailable, the director ultimately entrusted the role to the largely unknown Morrison. It was an extraordinary leap from supporting work and life behind the scenes to leading a massive Fox production.

BIG REALLY MEANT BIG
The title wasn't kidding. The Big Trail was conceived on an extraordinary scale. The production traveled thousands of miles through the American West and employed huge numbers of performers, animals and covered wagons to create the pioneer migration on screen. Real landscapes weren't simply backgrounds — they became part of the spectacle.

WIDESCREEN BEFORE WIDESCREEN WAS NORMAL
Decades before CinemaScope became synonymous with Hollywood spectacle, The Big Trail was photographed in Fox's experimental 70mm Grandeur widescreen process. The enormous image allowed Raoul Walsh to fill the frame with wagon trains, landscapes, animals and people on a scale audiences rarely saw in 1930.
The production was also photographed separately in conventional 35mm. That means the two versions aren't simply different crops of the same photography — scenes had to be staged and photographed for the different formats, producing noticeable differences between them.

THE MOVIE WAS TOO FAR AHEAD OF THE THEATERS
There was a problem with Fox's spectacular new Grandeur format: most theaters couldn't show it. Exhibitors would have needed special projection equipment, and the Great Depression made expensive theater upgrades particularly difficult. One of the movie's greatest technological innovations therefore helped limit the audience that could experience it as originally intended.

THE BIG BREAK DIDN'T MAKE HIM A STAR — YET
This is one of the most fascinating parts of Wayne's story. The Big Trail did not immediately make him a superstar. The expensive production failed to achieve the success Fox hoped for, and Wayne spent much of the 1930s appearing in lower-budget Westerns and other pictures.
Nine years later, John Ford cast him as the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach (1939), and everything changed.
But The Big Trail proves that the potential was visible long before Stagecoach.

WATCH THE JOHN WAYNE PERSONA BEGIN TO FORM
Look closely at Breck Coleman. The finished “John Wayne” screen persona isn't completely there yet — and that's exactly what makes the performance fascinating. The physical confidence, distinctive movement, humor, toughness and commanding presence that would define Wayne's later career are beginning to emerge.
You're not simply watching a John Wayne movie.
You're watching John Wayne becoming John Wayne.

FROM HISTORICAL CURIOSITY TO NATIONAL FILM TREASURE
In 2006, the Library of Congress selected The Big Trail for preservation in the National Film Registry, recognizing the film as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
For a picture whose original technological ambitions exceeded what much of the movie industry could accommodate, that's quite an ending.

The Big Trail represents the beginning of John Wayne as a leading man.