The iron horse

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Movie
German title The iron horse
Original title The Iron Horse
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1924
length 133 minutes
Rod
Director John Ford
script Charles Kenyon
production John Ford
music Ernö Rapée
camera George Schneiderman
Burnett Guffey
occupation

The Iron Horse is a silent film by John Ford from 1924. It is one of the classics of the western genre and deals with the construction of the first US-American transcontinental railroad connection .

action

In Springfield , Illinois , David Brandon's father dreams of a transcontinental rail link to California . Thomas Marsh smiles at him for it. The two children, Davy and Miriam, are childhood friends. Brandon goes west with his son Davy. One night they are attacked by Cheyenne at their camp and a white man on the Indian side with only two fingers on his right hand kills old Brandon.

In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act , an act to carry out construction work for a transcontinental rail link. President Abraham Lincoln signs it despite some objections about funding the project during the civil war. The newly founded railway construction companies Central Pacific and Union Pacific are to carry out the construction from west to east or from east to west.

Thomas Marsh owns the Union Pacific. Miriam is now engaged to the company's executive engineer, Peter Jesson. Work begins, and since not enough white workers can be found for the physically difficult jobs, many Chinese temporary workers are brought into the country. After the end of the civil war, many war veterans also work on the route. They suffer from harsh winters, occasional Indian attacks and an unbalanced diet of buffalo meat. When a supply train does not reach the workers - it was attacked by Indians - a mutiny breaks out, which Miriam can end with an appeal to the workers' national feeling.

In the meantime, the shortest route through the Black Hills is to be found. Bauman, the richest landowner in Cheyenne country, however, wants the route to lead through his estates on the Smoky River and, with the help of dancer Ruby, bribes Jesson not to find a break through the mountains.

Davy Brandon emerges from a chase with Indians and offers his knowledge of a pass through the mountains that was shown to him by his father. Brandon goes on a search with Jesson. When they get to Brandon's Pass, Jesson cuts the rope that Brandon rappels down into the gorge. Davy Brandon falls into a tree but does not die as Bauman and Jesson intended. Jesson returns with the news that there is no passport and that Brandon has crashed; Miriam is shocked by this news.

Brandon comes back and is amazed at the construction of the route towards the Smoky River. A scuffle between the two men, which is to be followed by a duel, arises because of Jesson's apparent lie. Miriam confesses her love to Davy before the fight; Davy Brandon kills Peter Jesson in a fist fight.

Bauman tries to prevent construction through the pass by inciting the Cheyenne to war. During the Cheyenne attack, Brandon is unexpectedly confronted with Bauman, who fights on the side of the Indians and turns out to be his father's two-fingered murderer. Brandon kills him and then goes to the Central Pacific.

After another year of construction, the two railways meet at Promontory Summit . The union was celebrated with a party on May 10, 1869 and the last nail in the rail was driven in (golden spike). After the route is christened, Davy and Miriam, like the railroads, come together.

Remarks

  • The assertion on an intertitle that the locomotives for the scene of the completion of the construction are the original ones is incorrect, as they were scrapped before 1910.
  • In an uncredited minor role, George Brent can be seen in his first film role.
  • The film was shown in German cinemas in 1925 under the title Das Feuerroß .
  • The premiere on German television took place on February 1, 1975 at 9:40 p.m. on Bavarian television .

Reviews

Joe Hembus judges that the film collects and integrates “everything that a Western can be: from the visionaries of the opening and closing scenes to the Revenge story, the Indian fights, the Boomtown story, the semi-documentary representation of a large organizational-technical company to the discrete sentimentality of a love story and robust humor [...]. "

Ann Dettmar describes the film as an “unpolished gem, the three levels” - the documentary, the observational and the dramatic level - are quite unconnected, but the film contains “wonderful scenes” and is “most haunting” in the “composition of the people in the picture ”and in“ such short, incidental moments ”like the scene when Miriam Marsh, previously characterized as silly,“ silently [reaches for a rifle] ”during an Indian attack.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joe Hembus : Western Lexicon. 1272 films from 1894–1975. 2nd Edition. Carl Hanser et al., Munich et al. 1977, ISBN 3-446-12189-7 , p. 167.
  2. Ann Dettmar: The iron horse. In: Bernd Kiefer, Norbert Grob (ed.), Marcus Stiglegger (collaboration): Filmgenres. Western (= RUB . No. 18402). Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-018402-9 , pp. 49-53, here 52.
  3. Ann Dettmar: The iron horse. In: Bernd Kiefer, Norbert Grob (ed.), Marcus Stiglegger (collaboration): Filmgenres. Western (= RUB . No. 18402). Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-018402-9 , pp. 49-53, here 51.
  4. Ann Dettmar: The iron horse. In: Bernd Kiefer, Norbert Grob (ed.), Marcus Stiglegger (collaboration): Filmgenres. Western (= RUB . No. 18402). Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-018402-9 , pp. 49-53, here 50.