The Shamrock Handicap

John Ford
USA 1926
70 min
V'04

The Shamrock Handicap (1926) is a horse racing picture, set in both Ireland and the United States. Even at this early date, Ford is oriented to an ethnographic reconstruction of folk life styles and customs. I have no idea if other silent film makers also liked this approach. I have never seen anything else like it, but my knowledge of silent film is still woefully fragmentary and incomplete. Here, Ford is recreating Ireland. Two years later, in Four Sons (1928), Ford is showing us Bavaria. Ford will follow this throughout his entire career. The Irish scenes at the beginning are the best part of The Shamrock Handicap (1926). There is a similar approach in such later works as How Green Was My Valley (1941). Ford uses the same techniques in 1928 and 1941. There are plot elements in common, as well. All of these films put heavy emphasis on parent-child interactions. All have emigration to America as a major theme.

Credits
  • Janet Gaynor
  • Leslie Fenton
  • Willard Louis
  • Claire McDowell
  • Louis Payne
  • George Harris
  • Andy Clark
  • Ely Reynolds
  • Gordon Elliott
  • J. Farrell MacDonald - Mike Donovan
  • Brandon Hurst
  • John Stone
  • Peter B. Kyne
  • George Schneiderman
  • Elizabeth Pickett
  • «The Shamrock Handicap» von Peter B. Kyne
Fox Film Corporation, John Ford Production
35 mm
bw