The back-to-back failures that almost ruined John Wayne: “I really hated making that film”
John Ford’s Stagecoach is generally regarded as the breakthrough moment that finally catapulted John Wayne from recognisable actor to bona fide leading man, but he was already a veteran by then.
Since making his screen debut with an uncredited role in 1926’s Brown of Harvard, ‘The Duke’ had amassed over 50 film appearances. Many of them were uncredited, and none of them positioned as the focal point, yet he was almost a decade and a half deep into his career before he became a household name.
If the stars had aligned the way he wanted them to, though, it would have happened almost ten years earlier. After adopting the stage name that would become embedded into Hollywood folklore and mastering the mannerisms that would define him, Wayne had his eyes on above-the-title success.
Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail was supposed to be his ticket to the big time, with the statuesque Iowa native finally being rewarded for his patience by securing his first starring role. There were high hopes internally that partnering the 23-year-old upstart with a proven director would take off with audiences, but it didn’t.
A four-month shoot encompassing seven states and a budget exceeding a million dollars was a massive investment in 1930, especially with a first-time leading man shouldering the burden, and The Big Trail bombed. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, with Wayne lamenting its failure to Michael Munn.
“I was sure I’d set the world on fire,” he lamented, “and it was hard for a young fella like me to realise 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.”
On the plus side, Wayne was back onscreen within a matter of months, diversifying his portfolio by branching into romantic comedy with Girls Demand Excitement. Did it undo the damage caused by The Big Trail? Nope, and if anything, it made things worse.
“I really hated making that film,” Wayne said. “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 by them, so my part was pretty lousy.”
In fact, ‘The Duke’ despised his experience on Girls Demand Excitement so much that he seriously contemplated quitting acting altogether. In October 1930, right before The Big Trail was gearing up to release in cinemas, he was confident that it would propel him towards the superstardom he desperately craved.
Fast forward several months, and two back-to-back duds had shattered his confidence so much that he was ready to give it all up. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most fulfilling period of his professional life, and he was still a long way away from finally becoming the icon that towered over the industry for so long.
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