Review of The Big Trail (1930) by Matt K — 15 Jun 2008

A very important film in film history. (It is shot in the "grandeur" process, which is basically widescreen ... in 1930!) It is worth watching just because of that. The widescreen cinematography is truly stunning and there are so many shots that look like epic painting, with thousands of extras and wagons and horses spread across the entire horizon.

I have no idea how they ever coordinated all of those people. Even simple dialogue scenes have a ton of wagons and horses moving though the background. There are no boring shots here. The problem is that is by far the best part of the movie.

The acting and writing and staging is pretty stiff (it is 1930 though) and the sound quality is terrible (also because it's 1930). The story is really good though, concerning a group of settlers making the tough journey across the continent.

There are some pretty cool set pieces like the fording of a river, getting stuck in the mud, a rainstorm, a snowstorm, cutting down huge trees, or lowing the wagons down a gigantic cliff. But the rest of the movie around those is very weak.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's historically important and very interesting technically, but slow and dull dramatically.