Iron Trail on AllMovie

Things were touch-and-go the first few years that United Artists was in existence, and the studio couldn't totally depend on the output by its founders -- Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith. Not so much attention, however, has been paid to those other early productions that the studio released in an attempt to break even. Perhaps this subpar, poorly-acted drama, based on a manly Rex Beach novel, goes a long way to explain why. Two men, honest engineer Murray O'Neil (Wyndham Standing) and corrupt promoter Curtis Gordon (Thurston Hall), are fighting for the right to run a railroad through Alaska's gold country. Gordon has hired a newspaper reporter, Eliza Appleton (Alma Tell), to make O'Neil look bad in the press, but instead of lambasting O'Neil she falls in love with him. Although Gordon uses crooked means to edge ahead, O'Neil manages to emerge victorious, along with winning the girl.