AllMovie

The last of the great silent epics, M-G-M's The Trail of '98 comes complete with a music score, sound effects and a theme song, "I Found Gold When I Found You", by Hazel Mooney, Evelyn Lyn and William Axt. Based on Robert William Service's 1911 novel, the sprawling epic remains a stirring drama about greed, love and redemption. Filming on location in Alaska and at Denver, Colorado, director Clarence Brown used a broad pencil this time and apparently didn't spare neither his actors nor the scores of stunt people employed to make the dangerous trek to the Klondike truly memorable. The famous scene of the long, arduous climb to the Chilkoot Pass is indeed the film's centerpiece -- the strain of it all is plainly visible in the faces of the extra's -- but it is closely followed by the harrowing journey down the Whitehorse Rapids. The latter scenes, filmed on Alaska's Copper River, reportedly cost the lives of no less than four stunt players, including Ray Thompson, who had so memorably played the ranch foreman in Buster Keaton's Go West (1925). But director Brown did not let the forces of nature completely dwarf the human elements and Trail of '98 is brimming with memorable performances, including Karl Dane as a carefree Scandinavian type fleeing a shrewish wife; Harry Carey, cast against type as the villain of the piece; George Cooper as Dane's lazy partner; and Doris Lloyd as a soft-hearted Klondike floozy. Only Dolores Del Rio and Ralph Graves, the romantic leads, seem somewhat out of place in the wilderness.