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DVD Savant wrote:Fox is reissuing 1930's The Big Trail in a two-disc special edition that includes both the flat 35mm and the widescreen 65mm Grandeur version, with three new documentaries. That comes on May 13.

Fantastic news, as even the 35mm version is visually stunning.

I've said it before, but I wish someone would put the Raoul Walsh doc from the Men Who Made the Movies series on one of his films. A bit saddened Fox isn't going to (can't?) do this for the Big Trail.

Nevertheless, getting the 65mm version of The Big Trail at all is a worthy cause for celebration. I'll be buying it.

The Big Trail artwork

The Big Trail - Fox Grandeur Special Edition (1930)

In this sweeping pioneer adventure, a courageous young scout (John Wayne) leads hundreds of settlers across treacherous cliffs, though brutal snowstorms, Indian attacks and buffalo stampedes to their destiny out West. Along the way, he loses his heart to a beautiful pioneer woman (Marguerite Churchill) and never stops trying to win her love.

DISC 1 - Widescreen Fox Grandeur Feature Film

BONUS FEATURES:

Commentary with film historian/author
The Creation of John Wayne
Raoul Walsh: A Man in His Time
The Big Vision: The Grandeur Process
The Making of the Big Trail
Galleries
Publicity
Original Posters
Pressbook Gallery
Trailers
DISC 2 - Full Screen Feature Film

BONUS FEATURE:

Fox Flix: Commancheros, North to Alaska, and Undefeated

According to imdb the full screen Big Trail is 1.19. Can someone give me the history of these different versions. Are we talking about two different shots of each scene? were the cameras side-by-side, or were they shot one after the other? I imagine there must be a dramatic difference.

Is this the first full-length widescreen film?

denti alligator wrote:According to imdb the full screen Big Trail is 1.19. Can someone give me the history of these different versions. Are we talking about two different shots of each scene? were the cameras side-by-side, or were they shot one after the other? I imagine there must be a dramatic difference.

Is this the first full-length widescreen film?

The first would be Ben Stoloff's Happy Days (1929), which was shot using the same "Fox Grandeur" process as The Big Trail. The system used 70mm film, with each frame being four perforations high, to create the widescreen effect. There are were also a few shorts and newsreels shot in Grandeur between 1929 and 1931, but very little of this material survives. None of the 70mm elements of either The Big Trail or Happy Days have survived. The only reason that we are able to see the widescreen version of The Big Trail is that Fox had made a 35mm Cinemascope print of it before the 70mm nitrate deteriorated in the 60s.

The two versions of The Big Trail were shot by two separate cinematographers. Arthur Edeson shot the widescreen version, and Lucien Andriot shot the standard 35 mm. I imagine that each scene was filmed first in 70mm, then in 35mm. Edeson contributed a great article on working in this new format to the September 1930 issue of American Cinematographer. You can read that article here.

There was also the Bat Whispers, by the freaky Roland West, shot in both 35 & 65 for a 1930 release. Caps between the different ratios here.

HerrSchreck wrote:There was also the Bat Whispers, by the freaky Roland West, shot in both 35 & 65 for a 1930 release. Caps between the different ratios here.

Yes. That was the only film shot via the "Magnifilm" process. It was five perfs high instead of the four used by Grandeur, leading to a slightly narrower aspect ratio.

According to this article, there were "11 features, released by 5 different companies, in 5 different widescreen formats, from the late 1929 to the end of 1930." There were less than 20 theaters in the country capable of exhibiting such features.

Jeff wrote:There were less than 20 theaters in the country capable of exhibiting such features.

And I'll bet they were spread between no more than three cities-- but more likely two: NYC & LA. Throw Chi in as a possibility, though... as it was a bumping production center during the silent era. To some degree at least.

I'd like to see some caps of this. Do you think the Beaver will review it?

Saw this for the first time last night and it blew me away. For once the word "stunning" is actually appropriate. Pure widescreen experience of a movie made almost 80 years ago...what a great thing to see. Walsh's compositions were fantastic....how frustrating it must have been for him to have to wait so many years to work with that format again. I highly recommend this as a blind buy. I only wonder why Fox bothered to include the 1.33:1 version on a second disc, as I can't imaging anyone but the most curious of scholars sitting through that after watching the widescreen version.

What a film... what a film-- furchrissakes Raul Walsh could do just about anything.. westerns, gangster, melodrama, fantasy. Men like Walsh and Mann, who showed little to no weakness when moving out of their "style" hugely undermine the myth of John Ford (who I hugely respect, don't get me wrong.. but who didn't have a touch of decadence or gritty urbanity in him) as "greatest" ever amongst the critics of the former generation who revered him, who overlooked Walsh & Mann more often than not.

Amazing that beev skipped over the tremendous visual spectacle of capping the grandeur version.

A film like no other-- ignore it and incur your own tremendous loss.

Haven't watched this in Grandeur yet, but even the old DVD had visual spectacle to spare (incredible depth to the compositions), and Walsh is probably even more underrated than Mann.

You keep beating me to the draw, Schreck. Race you to El Cid!

On your mark... get set...

I just wanted to chime in and further add to the praise the grandeur version is receiving on here. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing in glorious 16:9! The breathtaking visuals, the scale, the sweep of The Big Trail in the grandeur version is extraordinary.

I kept catching myself watching the background and thinking, "Oh my God. Look how many extras/wagons/horses/etc...Walsh has in this or that shot! That must've been hard as hell to direct." It's really an overwhelming experience to see a film of this age in widescreen and I'll definitely be giving it another look.

As for the story I found it very compelling and while some have criticized Wayne for being a bit wooden in this, his first starring role, I found his performance to be quite fine for the time. I actually did a double bill with The Shootist when I watched The Big Trail and it's incredible how much Wayne improved as an actor from his first vehicle to his final.