The Iron Horse (1924)

Writers:

Charles Kenyon (story) and
John Russell (story) ...
(more)

Release Date:

1925 (Germany)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

Blazing the Trail of Love and Civilization

Plot:

Springfield, Illinois. Brandon, a surveyor, dreams of building a railway to the west, but Marsh, a contractor...

Plot Keywords:

Native American | Epic | Railway | Train | Springfield Illinois

Cast

George O'Brien	...	Davy Brandon
Madge Bellamy	...	Miriam Marsh
Charles Edward Bull	...	Abraham Lincoln
Cyril Chadwick	...	Peter Jesson
Will Walling	...	Thomas Marsh
Francis Powers	...	Sgt. Slattery
J. Farrell MacDonald	...	Cpl. Casey
Jim Welch	...	Pvt. Schultz (as James Welch)
George Waggner	...	Col. William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody
Fred Kohler	...	Bauman
James A. Marcus	...	Judge Haller (as James Marcus)
Gladys Hulette	...	Ruby
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Chief John Big Tree	...	Cheyenne Chief (uncredited)
Danny Borzage	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
George Brent	...	Worker / Extra (uncredited)
Milton Brown	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Thomas Carr	...	Rail Worker (uncredited)
Peggy Cartwright	...	Miriam as a Girl (uncredited)
Colin Chase	...	Tony - Italian Worker (uncredited)
Harvey Clark	...	Dentist / Barber (uncredited)
Elmer Dewey	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
John Webb Dillon	...	Tall Woodsman in Prologue (uncredited)
Thomas Durant	...	Jack Ganzhorn (uncredited)
Bob Fleming	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Willie Fung	...	Chinaman (uncredited)
Jack Ganzhorn	...	Thomas C. Durant (uncredited)
James Gordon	...	David Brandon Sr (uncredited)
Ed Jones	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Tiny Jones	...	Little Woman Who Wants a Divorce (uncredited)
Sid Jordan	...	Gunfighter (uncredited)
Dick La Reno	...	Bit Part (uncredited)
Delbert Mann	...	Charles Crocker (uncredited)
Robert Milasch	...	Hell on Wheels Bartender (uncredited)
Winston Miller	...	Davy as a Boy (uncredited)
Pat Moriarity	...	Rail Worker (uncredited)
Charles Newton	...	Collis P. Huntington (uncredited)
Herman Nowlin	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
John B. O'Brien	...	Dinny (uncredited)
Charles O'Malley	...	Maj. North (uncredited)
Jack Padjan	...	Wild Bill Hickok (uncredited)
Edward Peil Sr.	...	Old Chinese Railroad Worker (uncredited)
Jack Richardson	...	Union Officer at White House (uncredited)
Vinegar Roan	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Walter Rodgers	...	Gen. Dodge (uncredited)
Harold D. Schuster	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Tom Smith	...	Cowhand (uncredited)
Chief White Spear	...	Sioux Chief (uncredited)
Charles Stevens	...	Indian (uncredited)
Frances Teague	...	Polka Dot - Dance Hall Girl (uncredited)
Stanhope Wheatcroft	...	John Hay (uncredited)
Leo Willis	...	Gunman in saloon (uncredited)
Chief Eagle Wing	...	(uncredited)

Directed by
John Ford		(uncredited)

Writing credits
Charles Kenyon		(story) and
John Russell		(story)
Charles Kenyon		(scenario)
Charles Darnton		(titles)

Produced by
John Ford	....	producer

Original Music by
John Lanchbery		(1994)
William P. Perry		(1974)

Cinematography by
George Schneiderman

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Edward O'Fearna	....	assistant director (uncredited)
Frank Powolny	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
William S. Darling	....	art department supervisor (uncredited)
Lefty Hough	....	property master (uncredited)
R.L. Hough	....	props (uncredited)
Herbert Plews	....	assistant props (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Burnett Guffey	....	additional photographer (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Harold D. Schuster	....	assistant editor (uncredited)

Music Department
John Lanchbery	....	orchestrator (1974 re-release)

Other crew
William Fox	....	presenter
Karl Malkames	....	restorator (1974 re-release)
Harold D. Schuster	....	production assistant (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Fox Film Corporation

Distributors

• Fox Film Corporation (1924) (USA) (theatrical)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1975) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (2007) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• British Film Institute (BFI) (USA) (DVD)
• Critics' Choice Video (video)

Also Known As:

The Iron Trail (USA) (working title)
The Trans-continental Railroad (USA) (working title)
Caballo de hierro, El (Argentina) (Spain) [es]
Cheval de fer, Le (Canada: French title) (France) [fr]
Feuerross, Das (Austria) (Germany) [de]
Cavallo d'acciaio, Il (Italy) [it]
Cavalo de Ferro, O (Portugal) [pt]
Eiserne Pferd, Das (West Germany) (TV title) [de]
Ildhesten (Denmark) [da]
Zelazny kon (Poland) [pl]

Runtime:

133 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White (tinted)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Beale's Cut, Newhall, California, USA

Company:

Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

When on location, the crew built a large town set in which many of the buildings had practical rooms. These rooms soon became living quarters, holding areas and storage space. The editing lab was set up in the post office set.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Omnibus: John Ford: Part One" (1992)

John Ford's First Epic Look At American West

A young boy grows to fulfill his murdered father's vision of seeing THE IRON HORSE, the mighty transcontinental railway, stitch the country together, binding East to West.

Bursting with excitement & patriotic fervor, THE IRON HORSE is the film which put young director John Ford on the cinematic map. He brought together all he had learned from years of making shorter, smaller films and he produced a product which heralded his enormous contributions to sound films in the years to come. This is a `director's picture' in that the stars, as good as they are, are almost negligible; what was important here was Ford's vision & his ability to place it before the audience. Indeed, he does not even bring his leading man (George O'Brien) on screen until 45 minutes into the story - a shortcut to disaster almost anywhere else.

(In all fairness it should be noted that O'Brien, handsome & strong-limbed, does very well as the gentle hero. He would find similar roles in other epic films of the decade. J. Farrell MacDonald, as Irish Corporal Casey, is the prototype for many comically eccentric fellows who would appear in other Ford westerns.)

The film often takes on the aspects of an ancient newsreel. Cattle drives, Indian attacks & endless track laying all look utterly real. Particularly fascinating is the depiction of the dismantlement of the end-of-the-track town, so that not even a dog is left, as it is moved many miles further on to the west. This type of arcane information is what makes watching very old films so enjoyable.

THE IRON HORSE represented the largest migration out of Hollywood for location shooting up to that time. Nothing like this had been attempted before, so Ford & his lieutenants were forced to make up the rules as they went along.

Hiring a circus train, the small army of extras arrived at the subzero Nevada location in January of 1924. The conditions which greeted them were authentically primitive. It was so cold, the extras quickly began sleeping in their costumes. Finding the train to be flea ridden, they moved into the sets and began living exactly as the characters they were portraying. The female extras especially suffered from the rugged conditions. A frontier mindset seemed to take over many of the cast & crew; the circus tent, which doubled as both the movie saloon and the crew's commissary, eventually had to have the catsup bottles removed from the tables to discourage the many fights which kept breaking out.

Authenticity found its way into the movie in other, more positive, ways. Several of the elderly Chinese extras, representing laborers on the Central Pacific, had actually worked on the real McCoy sixty years previous. They came out of retirement to appear in the film & enjoyed themselves immensely. Ford also managed to locate the two original locomotives which met at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869 and reunited them for the film's climax.

Composer John Lanchbery has contributed a splendid soundtrack to the restored video version, incorporating several contemporaneous tunes of the period. It would be intriguing to double bill THE IRON HORSE with Cecil B. DeMille's UNION PACIFIC (1939), which tells the same historical story, but with a completely different tack & set of fictional characters.