AllMovie

After a few so-so film appearances, Bert Lytell graduated to full stardom in Metro's The Trail to Yesterday. Having been forced to leave his Eastern home in disgrace, cowboy Lytell is in no mood to entertain visitors, and when heroine Anna Q. Nilsson takes refuge in his cabin during a storm, he is all for throwing her out. He changes his mind when he discovers that the girl's father (Ernest Maupin was the man responsible for ruining his life. Vengefully, Lytell forces the girl to marry him, but she escapes his clutches -- only to return to him when she learns that her father isn't her father, and that Lytell has been dealt a dishonest hand. The film's plot was actually a bit more complicated than this, but basically The Trail to Yesterday is a story of regeneration, of the sort that Bert Lytell always did so well.