John Wayne: The Life and Legend by Scott Eyman

the movie star. Wayne’s Sigma Chi fraternity from USC gathered to pay homage to their former brother at the premiere.
    Fox flooded papers all over the country with publicity and photographs, and a lot of papers played along: “Sweeping Across 7 States . . . The story of a Love Enduring Untold Hardships . . . Fighting merciless savages . . . Imperiled by stampeded buffalo . . . Driving battered wagon trains across searing deserts . . . Starving . . . Thirsting . . . Lovers Fighting side by side . . . In the most glorious and thrilling adventure you ever witnessed.” Mainly, the thrust of the ads was Manifest Destiny: “Thrills! Adventure! Romance! In 1001 gripping patterns woven from the bone and sinew of the heroic souls who bartered comfort, security and life itself for a share in the vision of the West.”
    Some of the ads were devoted to building up the new star, with a dramatic charcoal drawing of the young man and introductory copy: “John Wayne—Acclaimed by critics—hailed by the public.”
    Fox also decided to give its new star what might be called backdoor publicity. An article in
Motion Picture
magazine devoted most of its length to the dreary workaholic nature of young stars, who worked, studied, apprenticed, and lacked the colorful theatrical flourish of silent stars such as John Gilbert.
    At the very end of the article, in a postscript, John Wayne brings up the rear as a prop man spotted by Raoul Walsh. “And—in a twinkling—the young man was under contract and was announced as the lead for the picture. Meet Mr. John Wayne, new motion picture celeb!”
    Oddly, the ads and publicity didn’t mention Grandeur, because the 70mm equipment was apparently installed only at Grauman’s and New York’s Roxy. Most of the country saw the film in the conventional 35mm version that was advertised as “All Talking Fox . . . The Most Important Picture Ever Produced.”
    Many critics rhapsodized:
Film Daily
said that the “impressive epic of the west has the romance, colorful background, action and thrills for universal appeal . . . John Wayne, as a frontier scout, [scores] big.” “Photography soars to new and unscaled heights in Raoul Walsh’s great epic of the west,” wrote Elizabeth Yeaman in the Hollywood
Daily Citizen.
“John Wayne, a newcomer to the screen, is most prepossessing in appearance. In his buckskin suit, his long, lean physique presents a picturesque character. He was not an actor when Walsh selected him for this picture and did not become an actor in this picture. As a consequence, his every word and deed is outstanding for its naturalness and naïve force.”
The New York Times
thought that the movie was as stimulating as John Ford’s
The Iron Horse
, which it termed “that old silent film classic.” (
The Iron Horse
was all of six years old at the time.)
    Others weren’t so sure about the picture or its star. Sime Silverman in
Variety
thought that the film “will do a certain business because of its magnitude, but it is not a holdover picture.” Silverman also said that the filmmakers had erred by refusing to cast stars in the picture. “Young Wayne, wholly inexperienced, shows it but also suggests he can be built up.”
    Wayne traveled east to do some publicity for the picture dressed in his buckskin costume and holding his rifle. The photographers shot him as he posed in the doorway of his train compartment, holding a rifle in one hand and tipping his white hat in the other (in the film he wears a black hat). Nobody bothered to remind Wayne that he was wearing a wristwatch.
    The Big Trail
is a film of diametric opposites: awe-inspiring visuals and stilted acting. Wayne, twenty-two years old at the time the film began shooting, is a stunning physical specimen—tall, rangy, extremely handsome. The historian Jane Tompkins was struck by the difference between the Wayne of
The Big Trail
and the later, leathery Wayne: “The expression of the young John