The Telegraph Trail

Despite backing a young John Wayne with his best supporting cast in years, The Telegraph Trail still stinks.

Wayne plays cavalry scout John Trent. When his comrade and good pal Jonesy is killed to prevent completion of a telegraph line, Trent and his sidekick buddy Tippy, played by Frank McHugh, set out to apprehend the culprits.

The rote script sees them confront hostile natives incited by a corrupt trader played by Albert J. Smith. There’s also the obligatory love interest for Wayne, played by Alice Keller.

This was part of a six-picture contract John Wayne signed in 1932 to remake some silent Ken Maynard westerns while recycling Maynard’s impressive stunt footage. See my review of The Big Stampede for details. This one recycles footage from Maynard’s The Red Raiders.

Wayne’s prior pictures under this contract saddled him with subpar supporting casts, but this time he gets McHugh, a talented character actor, and Smith, a great heavy in that he seems comfortable in front of the camera and can hold his own opposite Wayne.

McHugh, meanwhile, provides the comic relief, offering his trademark laugh and an amusing running gag during the finale where, between shots, he takes a pull on a moonshine jug, sees double, and thinks he’s taken down two or four assailants with a single shot.

But that tent-pole set-piece—a massive gunfight that sees the pioneers circling the wagons and Wayne racing to wire the cavalry—drags, showing the same recycled footage multiple times. Even worse, the footage doesn’t match the film’s comic-adventure tone. We see pioneers take bullets, fall down in agony, wagons aflame, and folks scurrying in panic as the injured lie writhing on the ground. Meanwhile, Wayne returns and takes time to change his shirt before rejoining the fighting.

Speaking of Wayne, he doesn’t help. He has minimal chemistry with Keller and often over-emotes in his delivery. Compared to McHugh’s relaxed performance, Wayne looks every bit the amateur he was at that point in his career.

All of which relegates The Telegraph Trail to those few interested in seeing John Wayne before he was John Wayne. Others should consider one of The Duke’s later efforts.