John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [18]
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The Fox studio needed The Big Trail to be a success. Wayne was sent on a promotional tour to make personal appearances, and the studio publicists were busy making up false details about Wayne’s life. They said that he was a veteran of the Great War, a former Texas Ranger, and an all-American football player. He tried to set the record straight, but the damage had been done as columnists published some of the earliest myths about John Wayne. Over time he managed to correct most of those.
As the promotional tour for The Big Trail rolled on, the young actor began to believe that he was going to become a big movie star.
But the Wall Street crash in 1929 had affected every business in America, including the movie industry. The Big Trail had to be a success.
When the film went on release throughout America in November 1930, virtually every movie theatre showed the inferior 35mm 4 x 3
version because they simply couldn’t afford to install the equipment needed to show the widescreen version.
The worst happened; the film bombed in America, although it did do well in Europe where filmgoers probably saw versions featuring actors other than Wayne and the New York actors. William Fox went bankrupt, the studio went into receivership, and contracts were either not renewed, or were dropped altogether. The studio only just about survived, thanks mainly to the success of its Shirley Temple films.
Wayne told me, “I’d been counting on The Big Trail to make me a star, not because I wanted the fame, but because I wanted the financial security so I could marry Josephine. You know, I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth—that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if The Big Trail had been a success and launched me as a star. What I did learn was that this picture-making business was a damn fine business, and I was proud to be a part of it—always have been.”
It is almost impossible to critically assess The Big Trail today. It is certainly a physically impressive film, but it has dated badly, which is not surprising, considering it was made in 1930.
John Wayne’s performance comes across as wooden and awkward.
He had not yet affected his drawl or his famous walk, and against the 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 30
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likes of Gary Cooper, who had been so effective in The Virginian, or Warner Baxter who was so good in In Old Arizona, Wayne was no threat as a major star.
The failure of The Big Trail made studios wary of making big-budget Westerns and, with the exception of RKO’s Cimarron in 1930, Westerns were relegated to only B-picture status for a number of years.
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Happy Trails,
Unhappy Wedlock
It is generally assumed that after the failure of The Big Trail, Wayne went straight into B Westerns, but this is not so. Fox kept him on and starred him in Girls Demand Excitement, again with Marguerite Churchill. It was made on the cheap, with Wayne playing the captain of a college men’s basketball team who find themselves up against the girls’ team.
“I really hated making that film,” said Wayne. “It had no substance to it and was a big comedown after the adventure I’d had on The Big Trail. The studio really only threw the picture together to give work to a group of young actresses it had under contract that they didn’t know how to use. So the film was created for them, so my part was pretty lousy.
“One day I met Will Rogers, the biggest star at Fox, who saw I was pretty despondent and he asked what the matter was. I told him,
‘I’m making a terrible movie,’ and he said, ‘But you’re working, aren’t you? Just keep it up.’ That was the best advice I ever got; just keep working and learning, however bad the picture—and that’s what I did, and boy, I made some lousy pictures!”
Girls Demand Excitement, released in 1931, was as poor as Wayne had feared, and he knew he was bad in it. “I began to wonder 31
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then if I