Although the story was hardly new even in 1930, The Dawn Trail is told forthrightly by veteran director W. Christy Cabanne who this time stretched realism over romance. Buck Jones always tended to be more adult in his approach to B-Westerns than many of his rivals and The Dawn Trail is no exception. Miriam Seegar, who had made her name in London West End shows, is the standard sagebrush ingénue this time around, but Charles King, usually the blackest of blackguards, is quite amusing as the stuttering Skeets.