The Iron Horse

Shot by John Ford in his late twenties with nothing but a synopsis in hand, this silent western was Fox's answer to Paramount's railroad hit of the previous year. Young Davy watches his father head west dreaming of a railroad spanning the continent, only to be killed by a renegade missing two fingers, and years later, working on the Union Pacific line, he reunites with his childhood sweetheart and settles accounts with his father's killer. The film closes on the Golden Spike ceremony of 1869. The real story is in the shooting: a four week plan stretched into months, the crew lived on a Nevada reservation in twenty sleeper cars rented from a circus, hot water came from the locomotive's boiler, Californian actors battled sub zero temperatures, and one crew member died of pneumonia. A mile and a half of real track was laid, around three hundred Paiute extras were hired from the reservation, and Ford cast Chinese laborers who had actually built the Central Pacific, while his own uncle had laid track for the Union Pacific. The man playing Lincoln was a real justice of the peace in Reno, given the part after Ford was told he looked the resemblance. It was the highest grossing film of 1924 and entered the National Film Registry in 2011. Who it's for: Silent film enthusiasts and anyone wanting to see how John Ford began with the western. Who it's not for: Not for viewers troubled by depictions of Native Americans loaded with the cliches of the period, since the film is very much of its time.