Le Cheval de fer

Since I live in Cheyenne, WY this type of movie really appeals to me. As all historians know, various towns along the route of this railroad (which coincides quite closely to interstate 80 in Wyoming) were made during its construction. Cheyenne and Rock Springs (because of its coal mining) were especially notable.

I had seen this movie several years ago and was delighted to see it being broadcast on the Turner Classic Movies channel. Perhaps they will re-broadcast it again in the future.

This movie, while not completely accurate historically, certainly gives an idea of the magnitude of the endeavor being undertaken. And it does feature a real locomotive which operated on the railroad during the period portrayed. Historical buffs definitely should not be swayed from enjoying this title simply because it may not strictly conform to history.

I won't go into the story except to say that the various sub-plots keep the viewer very entertained. This was a very well-done movie in my opinion. Acting was very good. And the cinematography was very impressive.

Fans of either westerns or silent-era films certainly should not miss this one.

This film was on my radar for a long time. Saw this few days back on a dvd. Fortunately it was a US version of 2 hours 29 mins but was a lil upset when I heard about the bluray release date set for November. I enjoy watching western films on blurays. This film is an epic about the creation of the first transcontinental railroad. The film portrayed the backbreaking hardwork, the toils of the men and the determination. George O'Brien plays the young man whose father was murdered for finding a shorter route through a gorge. O'Brien is adamant to fulfil his father's dream inspite of obstruction n a murder attempt. I was shocked to know that many poor farmers' land was usurped for the project n this was one of the reason for turning the James brothers into outlaws.

In the mid-1920s cinema saw the second coming of the epic, the first having been in the mid-1910s, and giants of the era such as Douglas Fairbanks and Cecil B. DeMille were continually upping the ante on each other with bigger and bigger pictures. Meanwhile the Western had been in gradual development, and by now it was only logical that this ever-popular genre was itself given a massiveness makeover. Paramount had the first stab with The Covered Wagon in 1923, and the following year Fox responded with The Iron Horse.

The Western itself of course went through many developments in theme, and can be grouped into different phases. The Iron Horse, along with Covered Wagon, Three Bad Men (1926) and The Big Trail (1930) belongs squarely to the "pioneer" Westerns which dominate this era. In these pictures the west would typically be an unclaimed wilderness, and the heroes were those who explored, settled and developed it. By now the genuine old west was fading from living memory, and so now we had the first generation for whom it could be a romanticised piece of history. Plus of course there is the fact that the wagon trails, railroads and cattle drives of the pioneer Western were ideal for the aforementioned fashion for epic pictures.

Today of course The Iron Horse is best remembered for its director – a young John Ford. Even back then Ford had a close association with the Western, although to some extent his style is still in development here. His shot composition relies heavily on very distinctive framing devices such as tree branches or posts, and sometimes the shots look a little cluttered. Also, his approach to the romantic love scenes is entirely conventional – with close-ups, rhyming angles and sparse backgrounds so as to focus on the actors. The older (more cynical?) John Ford tended to shoot these moments rather flatly, the camera hanging back, and even throwing in distracting background business.

On the other hand, and perhaps in ways that matter more, this is very much the same John Ford of Stagecoach, Fort Apache and so forth. In particular is his vision of the west. Right from the opening scenes he contrasts the smallness of the homestead with the romantic allure of the wilderness – framing the actors tightly in the opening shots, and then cutting to point-of-view shots of the trail. He always captures the vastness of the outdoors, and yet without ever dwarfing the people in it. Particularly impressive (and this is perhaps where Ford's greatest strength lay) is his ability to combine different storytelling elements in a single shot – for example at one point we see a mother mourn her son at his grave in the foreground, while a heavily loaded train passes through in the background.

Another typically Fordian element is the precedence he gives to the comic relief characters. On location they were largely working without a script, so Ford could spin their scenes out as long as he wanted. As with many of his later pictures, charming though it is, the comedy business threatens to unbalance the real story. We can also see in "Drill ye terriers" a forerunner to the group singsong that is a staple of even the earliest John Ford talkies.

A nod to the actors is also due. This was George O'Brien's first lead role and he doesn't do badly, considering he got the part mainly for being a good-looking newcomer who could ride a horse. He doesn't emote too convincingly, but he moves well which is the most important thing for a picture like this. The other standout is J. Farrell MacDonald, who played the kind of roles for Ford in the silent era that would later be filled by Victor McLaglan in the talkies – basically a comical Irish drunk. But like McLaglan he hid real dramatic talent under the act, and he emerges as the most genuine player in this piece.

Ford's confidence and passion for the genre make the Iron Horse a classic, but it's worth remembering that The Iron Horse is also a triumph of post-production. Cast and crew had gone on location without a complete shooting script and large chunks of it are more or less improvised. As well as directing Ford took one of his earliest credits of producer and, would thus have been able to continue supervising the product after shooting was over. It's hard to imagine what any other producer or editor would have made of the footage he brought back from location. It's unlikely they would have kept so much of the comic diversions and "oirishness", and it's perhaps with The Iron Horse that we have - for better or for worse - the earliest example of an unbridled John Ford.

Iron Horse, The (1924)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

John Ford's first epic was a massive production for Fox who pretty much spent a ton of money hoping that the film would bring people in, which it eventually did. The film made a ton of money for Fox but more important it took Ford out of the gutters of "B" Westerns and made him a director to be reckoned with. The film tells the "true" story of the first transcontinental railroad as Davy Brandon (George O'Brien) tries to fulfill the dreams of his father who was killed by Indians years earlier. Davy must also try to win the heart of a former love (Madge Bellamy) while fighting off a man who wants to see the railroad fail. There's no question that Ford and Fox pretty much threw everything into this film and you can tell because it's story is all over the place. While I think the film isn't nearly as good as its reputation you still can't help but be impressed by many of the visuals. According to legend there were over 6000 people employed on the production with most of them being extras to give all the scenes a more epic look. I'd believe this legend because the scenery is downright beautiful to look at and there's no question that it has the look of a mammoth epic. The highlight for me were all the scenes where we see the railroad being built as the boards are placed and railings hammered down. There were many future films that dealt with the railroad but I must say this one here makes it look the most realistic. We get many other great action scenes including countless fights with the Indians where once again you can see the large scale with the amount of people, horses and of course stunt men. I think what really hurts the film is the fact that it really doesn't tell a clear story. I'm not sure if the film originally ran much longer but the 135-minute running time feels way too long but the reason for this is that so much happens and often times it doesn't really connect together. Instead of telling one full story, it seems the screenplay bounces all over the place and tries to tell as much as possible. One minute we're dealing with the railroad and then we jump to some town being built up. One moment we're dealing with the Indians but the next moment we're worried about the dress Bellamy is going to wear. It feels as if we're just getting countless vignettes pieced together without much need to bring everything together. Perhaps Fox was going for a Cecil B. DeMille type epic but this here didn't fully work. The film starts off saying that the history is true but that's clearly not the case as there are certain historic figures used in the film that had no place in the original events (like Buffalo Bill). Both O'Brien and Bellamy are good in their roles as are Cyril Chadwick, George Waggner, Will Walling and Charles Edward Bull who plays President Lincoln. THE IRON HORSE is certainly worth watching once for its importance to film history and while there are many impressive moments on the whole I think the film comes up a tad bit short.

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.