The Iron Horse 8/10 I have conflicted opinions of Ford as a filmmaker. I value the craftsmanship and most of the time I also value large swaths of the content, but his films often have aspects that rub me the wrong way, most commonly the terrible comedy and the constant mythmaking. This film is one huge mythmaking exercise and that made me weary from the get go, but it started off quite charming and, despite a few bumps along the way, keeps it up for over two hours. It helps that the main characters are equal to the grand story which balances the grand scale with a strong human element. You can certainly see a lot of the seeds for future westerns being planted, the concept of a prosperous but unstable wild west, the big battles, the saloon disputes, and a lot of other things, and, surprisingly, they feel quite fresh, perhaps because the silent style warps and constrains them just enough. For a film with such a large cast the performances are solid across the board, villains are despicable and heroes are sympathetic and even the side characters are interesting enough that I was always interested in what they were doing. The film has strong pacing and editing and while the visuals aren't magnificent, they are good. On the whole, it was a very enjoyable time with a grand production and a good story.
A few random thoughts:
I hate phonetic inter-titles. I get it, these people are dumb and can't pronounce or spell. I don't want to read purposely misspelled words.
There's a "not" joke in the film. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Ford comedy is still present, but it's much more subdued and less annoying here.
re: mythmaking. This would be less annoying if the film didn't insist on extolling it's devotion to realism.