Console best movie i've ever seen.

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

James Hitchcock "The Trail Beyond" is one of many low-budget western B-movies made by John Wayne during the 1930s. Rather unusually for a Western, however, this one is set in Canada. No doubt the 19th-century Canadian West offered as many challenges to settlers as the American West, and gave rise to as many adventures, but in general Hollywood tended to ignore any part of the North American continent lying north of the 49th parallel. (Apart, of course, from Alaska). Here Wayne's character Rod Drew and his friend Wabi travel to Northern Canada searching for a long-lost gold miner and his missing daughter. A complication arises, however, when they are falsely accused of murder and pursued by the Mounties. ("Wabi" is presumably an American Indian name as the character is said to be half-Indian. As, however, the name is pronounced "Wobbie" I assumed that he was really called "Robbie" but spoke with a lisp). The film exhibits many of the weaknesses I have come to associate with "Poverty Row" westerns, namely:-A hackneyed, cliché-ridden plot, in this case revolving around a treasure map, a gold mine and a gang of villains out to steal the treasure from its rightful owner. Ethnically stereotyped bad guys, in this case French-Canadians with accents as villainous as their personalities. (Well, at least it makes a change from casting Mexicans or Indians as the villains). Dubious acting skills. Even Wayne does little to suggest a major star in the making. Lack of attention to period detail. Most of the cast wear generic late 19th century Western costumes, but at one point we see Rod and Wabi wearing 1930s-style lounge suits while travelling in a train of distinctly 20th century vintage. Badly choreographed fist-fights. It would appear from watching this film that an extremely effective fighting technique, and one guaranteed to knock your opponent off his feet, is to punch the air about six inches away from his nose. Some of the stunts, however, are well done, and the film does have one feature not normally associated with Poverty Row. Most B-movie Westerns of this period were filmed on a Hollywood back lot, but this one was obviously shot on location against a background of real forests, lakes and mountains. Admittedly, filming took place around Mammoth Lakes, California, around twenty degrees of latitude further south than the film's ostensible setting, but much of the photography is in fact strikingly attractive. It is this feature which is responsible for the film getting a higher mark from me than it otherwise would have done. 5/10

MartinHafer Like the other John Wayne B-westerns I recently saw on the Encore Channel, this one had a very modern and inappropriate music track added to it by some idiots at Fox Lorber Pictures. Why they would do this is beyond me, as the electronic instruments and how invasive the music was seriously detracted from the film. My advice is to download the public domain copy linked to IMDb instead.In the 1930s-50s, some of the series B-westerns played very fast and loose with anachronisms and continuity. Early on, you see this is the case with "Trail Beyond" because although it begins in the old West, soon you see John Wayne dressed in stylish 1930s clothes and he's riding on a contemporary train car. Considering how often Gene Autry and others also had such silly anachronisms in their films, I guess I can cut this one a little slack.Wayne is sent to Canada by a friend. It seems that long ago, this friend and his brother became estranged. Now that he's an old man he wants to patch things up with his niece--who he's never seen. Due to his age, he needs Wayne to make this trip for him. However, on the way there, Wayne meets up with another friend (a college buddy?!) who is set up for murder and he helps the guy make a getaway. That Wayne--such a helpful and swell guy! The choice of the friend and the guy who played Mr. Newsome is pretty interesting, by the way. Newsome is played by Noah Beery and the young guy set up for a killing he didn't do is Noah Beery, Jr.--who you may recognize from his stint on "The Rockford Files" in the 1970s.Once in Canada, Wayne and his friend find a cabin with skeletons inside. In addition, there is a map showing the location of a gold mine. Naturally, there is an evil gang looking for the gold as well. I say naturally because just about every Wayne B-western involves an evil gang! Soon Wayne and Jr. get involved in rescuing a pretty lady from the gang. Surprise, surprise...the woman eventually turns out to be the missing niece---one of the least surprising twists in movie history! This is so predictable and contrived--especially when just as Wayne is about to tell this pretty lady about the Uncle and his desire to make her his heir, he's interrupted! Sheesh! In the meantime, an evil lady has decided to try to assume the role of his niece.In the midst of all this gang activity and deceit, there still is a killing attributed to Beery, Jr. and the Mounties are looking for him. Unfortunately, when a Mountie does catch the pair, he turns out to be one of the gang...and a faux Mountie! But, since it's a B-movie at well under an hour in length, very soon they manage to escape along with a real Mountie. Can they find the real niece AND the gold mine AND can Beery, Jr. prove his innocence? Aside from saying that the film was set in Canada, the Mountie and a couple guys with outrageous French-Canadian accents, this is pretty much like any other Wayne B-western. However, at least the crew filmed this in a location that at least looks reasonably Canadian (at Big Bear lake in California). This is pretty surprising, as this area is about 40 miles due east of Los Angeles--and not anywhere close to the wild North! The film is decent watchable B-western entertainment. Nothing deep or sophisticated here--just a very direct film made in a quick but exciting manner. This is not one to rush out to see and it has its obvious plot deficiencies, but it is worth seeing if you enjoy films of the genre.By the way, my favorite moment in the film was near the end. When the baddie was shot, he falls down near the edge of a cliff--dead. Yet, oddly, in the next cut, he's shown falling off the cliff--as if someone ha

FightingWesterner John Wayne makes a promise to an old family friend to find his long absent brother and niece in the wilds of Canada and ends up on the run there when his traveling companion (Noah Beery Jr.) shoots a man in self defense. To make matters even worse, Wayne finds the man he's looking for's skeleton along with a treasure map that he has to protect from some ruthless French-Canadians!A nice entry in Lone Star/ Monogram Pictures' John Wayne series, The Trail Beyond looks like one of those twelve-chapter serials whittled down to just under an hour. It's absolutely loaded down with adventurous action and great stunt work, including a breathtaking jump from a moving train and a slow-motion horse-leap from a cliff into the water below. However, some of the falling horse stunts were easily recognizable from earlier films and kick up a lot of sand, or is it supposed to be snow?Excellent, well photographed northern California locations double for the Canadian wilderness. I don't know how faithful they are to the real Canada, but they look good.

bkoganbing Within the first 10 minutes of The Trail Beyond, John Wayne gets a chore from a friend to locate the friend's friend and his daughter in the Canadian woods, meets another friend Noah Beery, Jr. from college, gets innocently involved in a murder and is fleeing up to Canada with Beery.There's almost as much canoe paddling as horseback riding in The Trail Beyond for our intrepid heroes. They've got to keep on the move from the Mounties who are looking to extradite both of them to America and Wayne's still got his mission on his mind.And if that ain't enough they get involved in a feud between the Hudson Bay Company local trading post owner, Noah Beery Sr. and some French Meti trappers. They're the bad guys and as another reviewer remarked their accents are pretty bad. Like Pepe Le Pew.Other than Island in the Sky, I believe this might be the only John Wayne film with a Canadian location. Even though they got no farther to Canada than the Sierras in California.What this film does give, is an opportunity to see both Noah Beerys, senior and junior in the same film. I saw that they have about seven screen credits jointly and this I believe is the only one available on VHS and DVD. Furthermore for once the senior Beery is not playing a bad guy.So while this one won't even make the top Fifty of John Wayne's films for all those reasons it might be worth a look.