The Big Trail- Unbelievable

[bigshot]

When I first saw this movie mentioned in a thread on a much later John Wayne film, I thought it was a Republic or Monogram potboiler. It's not. It's one of the most amazing films I've ever seen, and I'm sure that if the depression hadn't hit right as it was being released, it would have totally changed the face of Hollywood.

For those who aren't aware of this movie... When sound came in with The Jazz Singer, Fox intended to take it a step further with 70mm widescreen pictures. The Big Trail is the first and last really big picture produced in Fox's Grandeur process. It's essentially How The West Was Won done in 1930. The film has a cast of 90 with thousands of extras, horses, cattle, buffalo, covered wagons... The screen is packed from side to side with crowds stretching off into the distance. And they shot in five states in the west- giant sequoia groves, the Rockies in Wyoming, deserts, the Grand Canyon, the great plains... Astounding vistas.

The Grandeur process required retooling of the whole chain from film stock and cameras to the projectors in the theaters, and the stock market crash guaranteed that most theaters wouldn't screen the 70mm version. They screened a vastly inferior 35mm version that was shot alongside the widescreen one. The film tanked and 70mm widescreen didn't reemerge until the fifties.

The restoration on the bluray is a stunner. Tremendous detail and incredible compositions. The sound is primitive, like most films from this era, but the actors speak clearly so you can follow what they're saying. The other amazing thing is that this is John Wayne's first starring role. He's in hisearly 20s, and he drips with charisma. Star is painted all over him.

If any film rates a first class bluray version, this is it. I'm amazed that no one seems to be talking about it. Check out te screen grabs at the beaver. You'll see what I mean.

[benbess]

Originally Posted by bigshot

When I first saw this movie mentioned in a thread on a much later John Wayne film, I thought it was a Republic or Monogram potboiler. It's not. It's one of the most amazing films I've ever seen, and I'm sure that if the depression hadn't hit right as it was being released, it would have totally changed the face of Hollywood.

For those who aren't aware of this movie... When sound came in with The Jazz Singer, Fox intended to take it a step further with 70mm widescreen pictures. The Big Trail is the first and last really big picture produced in Fox's Grandeur process. It's essentially How The West Was Won done in 1930. The film has a cast of 90 with thousands of extras, horses, cattle, buffalo, covered wagons... The screen is packed from side to side with crowds stretching off into the distance. And they shot in five states in the west- giant sequoia groves, the Rockies in Wyoming, deserts, the Grand Canyon, the great plains... Astounding vistas.

The Grandeur process required retooling of the whole chain from film stock and cameras to the projectors in the theaters, and the stock market crash guaranteed that most theaters wouldn't screen the 70mm version. They screened a vastly inferior 35mm version that was shot alongside the widescreen one. The film tanked and 70mm widescreen didn't reemerge until the fifties.

The restoration on the bluray is a stunner. Tremendous detail and incredible compositions. The sound is primitive, like most films from this era, but the actors speak clearly so you can follow what they're saying. The other amazing thing is that this is John Wayne's first starring role. He's in hisearly 20s, and he drips with charisma. Star is painted all over him.

If any film rates a first class bluray version, this is it. I'm amazed that no one seems to be talking about it. Check out te screen grabs at the beaver. You'll see what I mean.

+1 Yes, this is an interesting and nearly lost film. It's a huge epic that is a key part of the history of the Westerns.

[Arkadin]

it's a great film no doubt and kind of stunning that it's out on blu-ray.
I'm still amazed someone at Fox was cool enough to greenlight a bd release.
seeing the scope of the production with all the extras they used is pretty amazing, and it's definitely one of those films that you watch and feel like you have gone back in time.
that's what I really love the most about these older classic films--even when you know that what you are seeing is being filtered through Hollywood's lenses.
an awesome western for sure.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by bigshot

When sound came in with The Jazz Singer, Fox intended to take it a step further with 70mm widescreen pictures. The Big Trail is the first and last really big picture produced in Fox's Grandeur process. It's essentially How The West Was Won done in 1930. The film has a cast of 90 with thousands of extras, horses, cattle, buffalo, covered wagons...

Let's not get carried away. The Grandeur process was 65mm presented at 2.13:1. The HTTWW Cinerama process was three strips of 35mm film with far more area than 65mm and an aspect ratio approximating 2.6:1.

And while it was "officially" the last Grandeur film, there was also "Billy the Kid" in 1930 and "The Great Meadow" released in 1931, both of which were shot in MGM Reallife, which was the same process. WB Vitascope was very similar and they released "A Soldier's Plaything" in 1930 and "The Lash" and "Kismet" in 1931.

[bigshot]

It's interesting to see wide shots with thousands of people and animals with covered wagons knowing that today we'd create all that in a computer, but back then they went out into the wilderness and created it for real.

[bigshot]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

And while it was "officially" the last Grandeur film, there was also "Billy the Kid" in 1930 and "The Great Meadow" released in 1931, both of which were shot in MGM Reallife, which was the same process. WB Vitascope was very similar and they released "A Soldier's Plaything" in 1930 and "The Lash" and "Kismet" in 1931.

None of them are available in hidef. Never even seen those on DVD in widescreen.

[DarknessBDJM]

It's amazing to see the higher quality of nitrate film composition combined with 65/70mm film gauge. The fact that most films of this era let more light in really helps the resolution as well. I can only imagine a scratch/scuff free print and how it'd look. Too bad they couldn't add something to nitrate film so that it wouldn't burn up like it does.

[benbess]

from wikipedia:

"In the early 1980s, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which housed the 65 mm nitrate camera negative for The Big Trail, wanted to preserve the film but found that the negative was too shrunken and fragile to be copied and that no film lab would touch it. They went to Karl Malkames, an accomplished cinematographer and a leading specialist and pioneer in film reproduction, restoration, and preservation. Malkames was known to be a “problem solver” when it came to restoring early odd-gauge format films. He immediately set about designing and building a special printer to handle the careful frame-by-frame reproduction of the negative to a 35 mm anamorphic (CinemaScope) fine grain master. The printer copied at a speed of one frame a second. This was a painstaking year-long undertaking that Malkames oversaw from start to finish. It is solely because of him that this film survives in this version."

[bigshot]

He's in the supplements and he shows the printer. Great docs on this one.

[Blu-Velvet]

There was some discussion about this back last spring on the NitrateVille.com forum "Talkie News" ( http://nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11778 ) when the Blu-ray was first announced and then when it came out. The film is pretty good as a story, despite some early talkie limitations, and the widescreen cinematography is beautiful. It'as also very interesting to compare with the version shot in 35mm at the same time, which has some different editing and compositions. It's truly impressive to realize while watching it that these are all real people and animals that had to do all this and be photographed in the wilderness on location, many decades before today's computer-generated extras and environments. It's even more sobering to realize that the time from when this film was produced until now (82 years) is roughly equivalent to the time from when it was produced until when the story took place.

I think there were something in the neighborhood of a dozen wide-format films made from 1929-31, all shot simultaneously on standard 35mm and most now existing only in that format. The only other early 70mm title I've heard of surviving besides THE BIG TRAIL is THE BAT WHISPERS, which is available on DVD but I'd really love to see get a good Blu-ray release along with the standard 35mm edition.

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by bigshot

When I first saw this movie mentioned in a thread on a much later John Wayne film, I thought it was a Republic or Monogram potboiler. It's not. It's one of the most amazing films I've ever seen, and I'm sure that if the depression hadn't hit right as it was being released, it would have totally changed the face of Hollywood.

For those who aren't aware of this movie... When sound came in with The Jazz Singer, Fox intended to take it a step further with 70mm widescreen pictures. The Big Trail is the first and last really big picture produced in Fox's Grandeur process. It's essentially How The West Was Won done in 1930. The film has a cast of 90 with thousands of extras, horses, cattle, buffalo, covered wagons... The screen is packed from side to side with crowds stretching off into the distance. And they shot in five states in the west- giant sequoia groves, the Rockies in Wyoming, deserts, the Grand Canyon, the great plains... Astounding vistas.

The Grandeur process required retooling of the whole chain from film stock and cameras to the projectors in the theaters, and the stock market crash guaranteed that most theaters wouldn't screen the 70mm version. They screened a vastly inferior 35mm version that was shot alongside the widescreen one. The film tanked and 70mm widescreen didn't reemerge until the fifties.

The restoration on the bluray is a stunner. Tremendous detail and incredible compositions. The sound is primitive, like most films from this era, but the actors speak clearly so you can follow what they're saying. The other amazing thing is that this is John Wayne's first starring role. He's in hisearly 20s, and he drips with charisma. Star is painted all over him.

If any film rates a first class bluray version, this is it. I'm amazed that no one seems to be talking about it. Check out te screen grabs at the beaver. You'll see what I mean.

Finally saw this, and "WOW", what an eye-opener. I agree with everything you've said bigshot. This is one of the year's best conceived and executed home video projects, and dare I say it, even important in terms of film history preservation and appreciation.

And to think Walsh and company were able to 'get' the 'language' of widescreen composition so early in its history. This film actually felt kinda modern in that regard...I was not only transported by a good story, very well told, but also by the sophistication of its visual aesthetic.

Just an amazing disc that should have a place in any serious film geek's collection.

[Martoto]

This got shown on Talking Pictures TV here in the UK at the weekend.

Some of the shots when Duke is in pursuit of those bad men in the snowy forest.

Like this one.



https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/scree...03&position=29