User Reviews

Jean Durand takes a break from split-reel slapstick comedies to direct a two-reel melodrama about two men racing to stake a claim on a gold field in Nebraska. He uses some of his stock company in some of the smaller roles, to produce a a fairly good effort, too.

The tension is kept up by the fact that both men will do whatever it takes to win their race, one traveling by train -- in apparently a very circuitous route -- and the other by whatever means comes to hand: horse, automobile, it makes no difference.

Durand, who certainly was not averse to using a lot of camera tricks in his comedies, particularly the Onesieme series, uses remarkably short cuts for a French picture of this era and shows a real flair for composition, frequently changing the size of the frame not with masking, as was common in this era, but by background and foreground objects and screens -- credit the uncredited cameraman.

Although this is by no means a great movie, it shows up well for its era and I am very pleased that it is on the Kino Lorber set of early Gaumont pictures.

This is pretty breathless stuff for 1912, thanks to a breakneck pace, decent stunts and intense action. It's a French Western filmed in France in which two friends fall out over the whereabouts of a gold vein and race to its location in order to be the first to stake a claim. A bit like Greed crossed with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

While "The Railway of Death" is certainly not a brilliantly made film, for 1912 it was awfully good. So, keeping in context when it was made will make this a more enjoyable film.

This adventure film set in the American West was actually filmed in France. The clothing, house and train really aren't American in style and you may notice this. You also may notice that the film is relatively short (15 minutes)--though this is actually full-length for the time.

It begins with two friends, Joe and Tom, coming upon a dying man on the prairie. Before he dies, the man tells them about a gold strike that they can have. However, instead of working together, greed takes hold and the two race cross country to take possession of the land. This involves a railway chase, an eventual train derailment and eventually, revenge.

The story and its message of the evils of greed is pretty good. Some of the special effects are very good (the train derailment) and some very lame (the train unhitching from the cars is bad, as it's obvious the cars are already stopped). But again, for 1912, it is excusable that the chase, at times, is pretty lame and uneven. Overall, a film that probably wouldn't interest tons of folks today, but silent film buffs and film historians would be intrigued by the film.