The Iron Horse (film)
| The Iron Horse | |
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Film poster
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| Directed by | John Ford (uncredited) |
| Produced by | John Ford |
| Written by |
Charles Kenyon John Russell Charles Darnton |
| Starring |
George O'Brien Madge Bellamy |
| Music by | Ernö Rapée (uncredited) |
| Cinematography | George Schneiderman |
| Edited by | Hettie Gray Baker |
| Distributed by | Fox Film Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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150 minutes (US version) 133 minutes (International version) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent |
| Budget | $280,000 |
The Iron Horse is a 1924 American Western silent film directed by John Ford and produced by Fox Film. In 2011, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
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 a note in the title before this scene that the two original locomotives from the 1869 event are used in the film, although this is false - both engines (Union Pacific No. 119 and Jupiter) 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.
In December 2011, The Iron Horse was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. In choosing the film, the Registry said that The Iron Horse "introduced to American and world audiences a reverential, elegiac mythology that has influenced many subsequent Westerns."
Among the extras used in the Central Pacific sequences were several Chinese playing coolies who worked on the railroad. They were in fact retired Central Pacific Railroad employees who had helped build the first transcontinental railroad through the Sierras, who came out to participate in the filming as a lark.
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
The film was released on DVD in America in its full-length US version (accompanied by the truncated UK version). A 2011 release of The Iron Horse on DVD in the UK included both the US and International/UK versions of the picture, and a half-hour video-essay about the film by author and critic Tag Gallagher. The 'international' version includes some variant shots and uses different names for some supporting characters; it also carries a dedication to the British railway engineer George Stephenson.
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Wikipedia