Movie The Big Trail - John Wayne's first leading role. Filmed in 70 mm Grandeur.

[Warden Callaway]

Lavish wide screen 70mm version.  Was concurrently shot with 35mm because few movie theaters had the Grandeur projectors.  Also, with main characters in 4 languages.  They would shoot a scene and run in another cast and shoot the scene over.  You'll recognize many of the scenes reused in many movies. The river crossing in a storm is one.

 

 

[Tex Jones, SASS 2263]

I always liked that movie.  Great scenes of the wagon train, moving, circling of wagons.  As I recall reading once many of the people on the wagon train were descendants of actual wagon train pioneers.  Sort of "re enactors" if you will.  The movie did not fare well at the box office, due in part to the lack of the bigger projectors.  That "failure" consigned Wayne to B movie roles for almost 10 years before John Ford cast him as The Ringo Kid in Stagecoach.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

2 hours ago, Warden Callaway said:

Lavish wide screen 70mm version.  Was concurrently shot with 35mm because few movie theaters had the Grandeur projectors.  Also, with main characters in 4 languages.  They would shoot a scene and run in another cast and shoot the scene over.  You'll recognize many of the scenes reused in many movies. The river crossing in a storm is one.

 

 

One of my favorite movies, and the river crossing scene you mentioned was very realistic.  I'd bet that several cattle died in that when they were washed away.  No laws protecting animals in those days.  

 

It has always amazed me that so many wagons were used in the days before Hollywood was making them on their own.

 

My Mormon ancestors reported "scissoring" things over cliff, but this is the only movie where I've seen it being done.

 

Another scene that fascinated me was the snowstorm.  No soap flakes used here, it was a real snowstorm.

 

My only problem was Wayne throwing his knife.  I can't imagine a real frontiersman throwing and perfectly good knife at a questionable target.