Themes: Taming the West, Success is the Best Revenge
Main Cast: Winston Miller, George O'Brien, Madge Bellamy, Peggy Cartwright, Charles Edward Bull, Cyril Chadwick, James Gordon, Fred Kohler
Release Year: 1924
Country: US
Run Time: 150 minutes
Plot
John Ford directed this epic-scale silent western, which was one of his first major successes and was hugely influential on outdoor films that followed. David Brandon (James Gordon) is a surveyor in the Old West who dreams that one day the entire North American continent will be linked by railroads. However, to make this dream a reality, a clear trail must be found through the Rocky Mountains. With his boy Davy (Winston Miller), David sets out to find such a path, but he's ambushed by a tribe of Indians led by a white savage, Peter Jesson (Cyril Chadwick); while the boy manages to escape, David is killed. Years later, the adult Davy Brandon (George O'Brien) still believes in his father's dream of a transcontinental railroad, and legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln has made it an official mandate. Davy is hired on as a railroad surveyor by Thomas Marsh (Will R. Walling), the father of his childhood sweetheart Miriam (Madge Bellamy). While Davy hopes to win Miriam's heart as he helps to find the trail that led to his father's death years ago, he's disappointed to discover that Miriam is already married -- and shocked to discover her husband is Peter Jesson, now working with the railroad as a civil engineer. As the Union Pacific crew presses on to their historic meeting at Promitory Point, Davy must find a way to earn Miriam's love and uncover Peter's murderous past. Shot on location in Arizona in Ford's beloved Monument Valley, The Iron Horse was a massive production that employed over 6,000 people; two temporary cities were built to accommodate them, with 100 cooks on hand to serve meals. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
One of the great silent screen epics, John Ford's The Iron Horse, about the building of the transcontinental railroad, still packs a wallop today. In fact, there is almost too much of everything: Brave men fighting for the right of settlers to settle despite never-ending Indian attacks; nasty landowners attempting to misdirect the railroad for their own financial gain; more Indian attacks; quaint Irish characters singing quaint Irish songs when not battling the elements and each other; and still more Indian attacks. All of it filmed with John Ford's legendary feel for the land and its people. And in true Ford style, none of the grandeur is allowed to overshadow the human elements. Only in a Ford film will a fallen Indian be mourned by his faithful dog, as happens here. And only Ford would create an astonishing scene such as the one in which the laborers, without missing a beat, continue their arduous job of building the iron trail mere moments after having quelled a bloody raid by the evil Cheyennes. Said Cheyennes are here lead by nasty white landowner "Two-Finger" Deroux, played to the hilt by Fred Kohler, who creates one of the silent era's most despicable villains. (Ford actually plays on Kohler's real-life debility, a birth defect apparently and not the results of a dynamiting accident as has often been claimed.) Later in the film, Kohler and leading man George O'Brien engage in one of those legendary silent screen fist-fights where no holds were barred, filmed and edited for maximum effect. The rest of the cast is equally well-appointed: Madge Bellamy pretty and sometimes feisty as O'Brien's love interest; former ingénue Gladys Hullette quite realistic as a frontier floozy; and Edward Bull the very picture of Abraham Lincoln. Former comedian Cyril Chadwick is at his supercilious best as Bellamy's cowardly fiancé, and J. Farrell McDonald plays one of those irascible, but good-natured Irish types so beloved by Ford, who would later cast Victor McLaglen and older brother Francis Ford in the very same kind of roles. In fact, several scenes featuring McDonald, James Welch, and John B. O'Brien as army veterans turned railroad workers reappear almost verbatim in Ford's famous "Cavalry" trilogy (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, and Rio Grande) of the late '40s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
John Farrell MacDonald - Cpl. Casey; Gladys Hulette - Ruby; James Marcus - Judge Haller; Francis Powers - Sgt. Slattery; James Welch - Private Schultz; Colin Chase - Tony; Walter Browne Rogers - Gen. Dodge; John Padjan - Wild Bill Hickok; Charles O'Malley - Maj. North; Charles Newton - Collis P. Huntington; Delbert Mann - Charles Crocker; Frances Teague - Polka Dot; Stanhope Wheatcroft - John Hay; Danny Borzage; Clark Gable; Judge Charles - Abraham Lincoln; Chief John Big Tree - Cheyenne Chief; Edward Peil Sr. - Old Chinaman; William Walling - Thomas Marsh; George Waggner - Buffalo Bill Cody; John B. O'Brien - Dinny; Chief White Spear - Sioux Chief
Credit
Edward O'Fearna - First Assistant Director, John Ford - Director, Erno Rapee - Composer (Music Score), Burnett Guffey - Cinematographer, George Schneiderman - Cinematographer, John Ford - Producer, Charles Kenyon - Screen Story, John Russell - Screen Story, Charles Kenyon - Screenwriter, John Russell - Screenwriter, John Russell - Short Story Author, Charles Keynon - Short Story Author
The film presents an idealized image of the construction of the American first transcontinental railroad. It culminates with the scene of driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869. There is even a note in the title before this scene, that the two original locomotives from 1869 event are used in the film (Although this is false - both engines were scrapped before 1910). Of course, a romantic story with love, treachery and revenge is also here. Main stars were George O'Brien and Madge Bellamy.
There is a video version of this film, with original music composed and conducted by John Lanchbery with philharmonic orchestra from Prague. This version is softly tinted.
