Roaring Rails
About Roaring Rails
In France in 1918, railroad engineer Bill Benson (Harry Carey) takes a promise from a dying mother and brings her son home. Frankie Darro plays the boy, Little Bill. Back on American rails, Benson, the boy, and waitress Nora Burke (Edith Roberts) run into trouble from Malcolm Gregory (Wallace MacDonald). When the boy needs an operation Benson cannot pay for, he takes the blame for a killing he did not do. The finish is a railroad run.
Cast & crew
More about Roaring Rails
Tom Forman directed. Doris Dorn and Hunt Stromberg are credited with the writing. Sol Polito photographed it. Producers Distributing Corporation released it on 21 September 1924. Frank Hagney plays "Red" Burley and Duke R. Lee plays John McFarlane.
Themes
Background
A 1924 railroad melodrama that starts in the American army in France and comes home to the tracks.
Look
Sol Polito photographed the railroad scenes.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
The George Eastman Museum holds a complete print, restored in 2010 with National Film Preservation Foundation funding.
Notes
- Carey is Big Bill and Darro is Little Bill.
- A complete print at the George Eastman Museum was restored with National Film Preservation Foundation money in 2010.
- Turner Classic Movies showed that restoration on 14 December 2011.
Scenes
- Benson takes the boy from his dying mother in France.
- He accepts blame for a murder so the boy can have the operation.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-roaring-rails)
- George Eastman Museum
