THE TRAIL BEYOND
US, 1934, 55 minutes, Black and white dot
John Wayne, Verna Hillie, Noah Beery, Beery Jr, Robert Frazer, Iris Lancaster, Eddie Parker, Earl Dwire.
Directed by Robert Bradbury.
The Trail Beyond is one of nine films that John Wayne made in 1934. Entering movies at the end of the silent era, 1927, he made many supporting feature westerns, small-budget, until 1939 when he made a breakthrough with John Ford and Stagecoach. 30 years later, after so many westerns, he won an Oscar for his performance in True Grit.
The supporting westerns were fairly standard, lots of riding scenes and, in this case, many dives into rivers and lakes, including on horseback (with stuntman Yakima Canut, best known for Ben Hur, doing many of the stunts). Acting was fairly standard, often very stolid, including that of Wayne himself who was developing a screen persona which carried him through for many decades.
This is a contemporary western, and Wayne’s character having been to college. He is given the mission to find the daughter of a friend of his father’s – and he travels by train, encountering a friend from college days, Wabi (Noah Beery). Very quickly, Wabi be becomes involved in some shooting after a poker game and Wayne and he do a Butch Cassidy from the train into a river and go to an outpost. They find the skeletons of the missing girl’s father and a rival, each having killed the other, but leaving a map with a gold mine indicated.
The setting is Canada and French- Canadian assistant to the manager of the outpost steals a map and takes it to an outlaw – which leads to the abduction of the assistant at the outpost, who turns out to be the missing girl, who is rescued daringly by Wayne.
This leads to the buildup for a shootout, and escape by canoe and more going into the water before the happy ending where Wabi, who was attracted to the girl, realises that she is in love with Wayne and he waves them goodbye.
One of the features of these films is that they do pack a great deal of plot within the under-our running time.
