Blast from the Past: Revisiting The Iron Horse
John Ford directed The Iron Horse, a silent Western produced by Fox Film, became a milestone in Ford’s career, manifesting his lifelong connection to the western genre.
| The Iron Horse | |
|---|---|
Film poster
|
|
The film concerns the construction of the American first transcontinental railroad.
It depicts Irish, Italian, Chinese immigrants, as well as African Americans, as the men who did the backbreaking work that made this feat possible.
The villain is an unscrupulous businessman who masquerades as renegade Cheyenne.
The story concludes May 10, 1869, with a scene of driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit.
Among the extras in the Central Pacific sequences were Chinese men playing coolies working on the railroad. They were retired Central Pacific Railroad employees who had helped build the first transcontinental railroad through the Sierras, who participate in the filming as a lark.
There is a note in that the movie used two original locomotives from the 1869 event, though this is disputed as both engines (Union Pacific No. 119 and Jupiter) were scrapped before 1910.
It became Ford’s first major film, in part because the hastily planned production went over budget–Fox was eager to follow up on the success of another studio’s western.
In December 2011, The Iron Horse was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. The Registry said that The Iron Horse “introduced to American and world audiences a reverential, elegiac mythology that has influenced many subsequent Westerns.”
The 2011 release of The Iron Horse on DVD in UK included both the US and International/UK versions of the picture. The international version includes some shots and different names for some supporting characters. It is dedicated to the British railway engineer George Stephenson.
It incorrectly identifies the “UP 119” as the “UP 116,” as both engines had been scrapped 21 and 15 years earlier. Interestingly. what appears to be the Central Pacific’s “C.P. Huntington,” now on display in Sacramento, is manhandled up a steep grade on sledge made of logs.
In the early 1920s, the publishing house Grosset and Dunlap collaborated with prominent Hollywood studios in issuing novelizations of teir major releases, including The Iron Horse (1924, 329pp). The author, journalist Edwin C. Hill, would become radio broadcaster, best remembered for the show “The Human Side of the News.”
The Iron Horse was both a critical and commercial success.
Cast
George O’Brien as Davy Brandon
Madge Bellamy as Miriam Marsh
Charles Edward Bull as Abraham Lincoln
Cyril Chadwick as Peter Jesson
Will Walling as Thomas Marsh
Francis Powers as Sergeant Slattery
J. Farrell MacDonald as Corporal Casey
Jim Welch as Private Schultz/Mackay (credited James Welch)
George Waggner as Col. William F. ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody
Fred Kohler as Deroux / Bauman
James A. Marcus as Judge Haller (credited as James Marcus)
Gladys Hulette as Ruby
Jean Arthur as Reporter (uncredited)
Chief John Big Tree as Cheyenne Chief (uncredited)
Jack Padjan as Wild Bill Hickok (uncredited)
Produced, directed by John Ford
Written by Charles Kenyon, John Russell, Charles Darnton
Cinematography George Schneiderman
Edited by Hettie Gray Baker
Music by Ernö Rapée (uncredited)
Distributed by Fox Film Corporation
Release date: August 28, 1924
Running time: 150 minutes (US version); 133 minutes (International)
Budget $280,000
Box office $942,889
