Union Pacific begins with President Lincoln’s signing of the Pacific Railroad Act in 1862, firing the starting gun of the sprint pitting the Union Pacific Railroad against the Central Pacific Railroad, both aiming to first reach the Promontory, Utah junction. This transcontinental picture — Its financial and critical success cemented director Cecil B. DeMille's creative freedom on future films — follows the Union Pacific Railroad as it heads West, through Sioux territory and the peaks of the Rocky Mountain range. The film’s engine is the sabotaging, financially undermining competition of the tracklaying race that reunites war veterans Dick Allen and Jeff Butler, played by Robert Preston and Joel McCrea, respectively. The bonded pair now find themselves fighting for opposite tracks, but for the same woman, Barbara Stanwyck’s Mollie Monahan, a lively, Irish-rooted postmistress with the Union Pacific Railroad company.

The number of trains involved in production was so large that Paramount was required to obtain a legitimate railroad operating license, and the film’s premiere was one of the biggest bashes on Hollywood record, bringing a multi-day festival to Omaha and a star-studded train ride from West to East Coast. Despite these signs of bloat, Union Pacific remains an intimate, witty, and critical piece of film history that (retroactively) earned the very first Palme d’Or at the 1939 Cannes Film Festival. 

All aboard the iron horse, we’ll be waiting for you at the end of track.