A Part of The Music Box 70mm Film Festival 2020

35mm with Optical Sound

The biggest Western of the 1930s — complete with wagon trains, buffalo hunts, forests as wide as the eye can see, and every genre trope you can name – demonstrated the promise of Fox’s 70mm Grandeur process and introduced audiences to a new would-be star, John Wayne. Alas, the film’s commercial failure sent Wayne back to B-movie cow-punching for nearly a decade. The only complete, surviving example of a Fox Grandeur production (albeit preserved in 35mm), THE BIG TRAIL still radiates a pioneer aura as Walsh exploits the large-gauge format’s depth of field like no production this side of PLAYTIME.

Restored by The Museum of Modern Art with support from The Film Foundation.