The Big Trail, which was released in 1930, marked the debut of John Wayne as a leading man as Breck Coleman; a skilled frontiersman hired to lead a wagon train full of settlers from the banks of the Mississippi to their ultimate destiny on the Western frontier; with his imposing physique, charisma and handsome chiselled features Wayne fits the romanticised image of the dynamic American frontiersman. A real rough tough cowboy.
The Big Trail gives an insight into the reality of the settlers on their journey to the West, a tough unforgiving trial that ended in the death of many of their number, with wagons being lowered down mountains, crossing rivers and fighting all the stormy elements of the wild west.
