Not every title of the silent era is made equal, and some are rather middling or dull. Then again, it continues to be true that some of the greatest films ever made hail from the earliest years of the medium, and even setting that aside some films are just a total delight. Unfortunately, I don't think this 1921 feature falls into either of the latter categories. It starts out promisingly enough, and the very first thought I had was that despite the directness of early scenes it seemed like the sort of flick that would get mentioned in a love letter to Hollywood like Damien Chazelle's 'Babylon, or the Coen Brothers' 'Hail, Caesar!' In an abbreviated runtime of under one hour, however, the storytelling grows increasingly scattered as the minutes tick by. I trust, in generosity, that Max Brand's novel was more cogent, and that screenwriter and director Lynn Reynolds is more likely to blame for how incohesive the picture is. No matter where one wishes to lay the responsibility, though, 'Trailin'' is a garbled mess, and it's rather difficult to have any fun with this.
The narrative leaps to and fro from West to East to West, introducing one character after another and failing to especially identify who they are or where they really fit into the course of events. Especially with that in mind it's all too easy too quickly lose track of the actual plot, and the movie doesn't seem especially concerned with the integrity of that plot in the first place as disparate ideas are tied together very meagerly if at all through the scene writing. We do get some classic, anticipated western action within these fifty-six or so minutes, but the threads connecting such moments to the story are weak; too many scenes are tepid sequences of dialogue (imparted through intertitles) that are very poor about communicating the essence of the story on hand. Speaking of dialogue and intertitles, if the script here were any more obsessed with the term "tenderfoot" then it would read like a western iteration of the sequence in 'Being John Malkovich' where we get entire sentences of dialogue are just "Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich." Factor in the romantic element that feels terribly contrived, and it begins to feel that Reynolds was just throwing ideas at a wall in the hope that something reasonably concrete might spontaneously form. (It did not.)
The pacing is a tad too swift, owed as much to Reynolds' direction as the editing. I'm deeply unimpressed with Benjamin H. Kline's cinematography, which in my opinion does a poor job of visualizing too many moments, including even the dangerous stunts that should be the most exciting facet of the film. On that note, 'Trailin'' is well made in other regards, definitely includes effects and those stunts, and I appreciate the sets, costume design, hair, and makeup. I think the cast is done no favors by the sloppiness of the writing and direction, nor the questionable cinematography and editing, but it seems to me that the acting is just splendid. The narrative in and of itself, on paper, is fairly solid, or in the very least can claim some good ideas. The fact remains that filmmaker Reynolds seems to have approached the feature with a mind for spectacle, and not for any care of giving meaningful form and substance to that spectacle. There is a terrible surfeit of Movie Magic and wishful thinking to stitch the tale together as we see it; some folks refer to the silent era as "simpler entertainment for a simpler time," and there is such astonishing lack of nuance or finesse in the storytelling here that it's surely a sad epitome of that notion. The ending kind of seems to come out of nowhere - and yet for as flimsily as the preceding saga is related, that pretty much goes for every other scene and beat, too.
Someone out there loves this picture. I'm not that someone. I adore the silent era, but some fare holds up significantly better than other instances, and as far as I'm concerned 'Trailin'' falls under "other." While there was other room for improvement, in the very least all it needed was for more thought to have been bent toward ensuring effective, unified, convincing communication of the plot, but that's just not what happened here, and the result is all too troubled as a result. I'm glad for those who get more out of the title than I do, but in my opinion one is better off looking for other contemporary westerns that are more well put together. Oh well.
