Metro's Trail of '98 (available on a superb Warner Archive DVD - I repeat, Warner Archive! Don't ask me what an M-G-M movie is doing on a Warner Archive DVD, but presumably Metro sold the movie to Warners for a remake) is a great run for the money. The story and characters are much the same - as are the locations - of many other similar movies. Despite its name cast, including alluring Dolores Del Rio, competent Ralph Forbes as the hero, Karl Dane, Tully Marshall and Harry Carey (a superb villain), the story, the background and the locations were publicized by M-G-M, rather than the cast. In fact, it was Robert W. Service's name alone that the studio featured on many posters.
Coming right at the tail end of the silent period (it was issued with a sound track of music and effects), the superbly made, bitingly atmospheric and thrillingly enacted Trail of '98 with its impressive cast, stunning locations and hard-hittingly sardonic story (perhaps its get-rich-at-all-costs theme was too uncomfortably close to home for stock market jittery 1929 audiences) failed to recover its huge production costs. Although director Clarence Brown managed to retrieve his reputation with Anna Christie (1930), he was never again entrusted with a budget of comparable size, although he went half-close with Anna Karenina (1935), The Rains Came (1939) and The Yearling (1946) - although part of the latter's expenses of course were racked up by Victor Fleming in Metro's failed 1941 attempt to film the Marjorie Rawlings' novel.
Review of The Trail of '98
