The Iron Master (1933) User Reviews

It's A Good Story With Good Performances In A Cheap Production

[boblipton · 6/10 · 12 November 2019]

When J. Farrell MacDonald dies, he leaves the estate and the iron mill in the hands of Reginald Denny, who has worked his way up from the bottom. His wastrel family resent his careful ways and the tight budget he keeps them on, so they conspire with competitor Richard Tucker, who proposes they wreck the business to force a merger with his interests. Siblings Lila Lee and William Janney agree.

It's good if cheap Poverty Row version of the story, directed by Chester Franklin. Based on a play by Georges Ohnet, it had been filmed at least twice in France: a silent version in 1919, and a sound version the same year as this one, co-directed by Abel Gance. This version is perfectly serviceable, although the budgets that producer M.H. Hoffman means it falls into rote patterns. Still, the actors give it their all, and Franklin gets a good performance out of Freddie Burke Fredericks, in what would be his last screen role.

Basically a good story...but handled artlessly.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 13 October 2018]

"The Iron Master" has an excellent story idea. But, like many B-movies, it's artlessly made--with poor direction and obvious plot elements. A bit of subtlety would have really helped this one!

J. Farrell MacDonald plays an industrialist with one big problem....his spoiled family. But he's a wimp and has trouble ever telling them no....and as a result they are the most worthless and annoying folks I can recall seeing in a movie! To try to correct this, he appoints his foreman (Reginald Denny) to control not only the foundary but the family as well. If they want to spend money, they must come to him and show maturity...or they'll just have to learn what it's like to be poor. So, the family schemes to fool him into giving in...and in the process nearly destroy the company and their fortune.

This is a decent story. But making the family THAT hateful and worthless was a bad idea, as it was handled ham-fistedly and really should have been slower and more subtle in presenting them. In addition, the foreman falls in love with the daughter...and you wonder why! After all, she's a nasty spoiled brat....and a man that would want her ought to have his head examined! And finally, the car chase sequence was really badly done...with obvious rear projection that was poor even for 1933.

So am I saying I hated the film? Not exactly. It's still watchable and entertaining...but with just a little bit of subtety and it could have been a great B-movie...not a run of the mill 'quicky'.

Our modern family, a soap opera about greed.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 29 August 2016]

The depression was no time for wealthy families to quibble about how the family purse strings were run, and in the case of rough Reginald Denny, it couldn't be in better hands. This surrounds patriarch J. Farrell MacDonald's decision to leave his iron company to his loyal foreman, played by Denny. Daughter Lila Lee, brother William Janney and flighty, vain mother Esther Howard are all aghast, especially Lee who has secretly fallen in love with him in spite of her own snootiness. The family takes great glee in plotting Denny's downfall, but they don't count on Lee, a long time loyal secretary and a loving grandson to step in at the last minute. It's all for the good of mending this rather morally bankrupt family and exposing their hypocrisy. Denny gets to play against type while Lee is an appealing heroine. They are surrounded by a fine cast. A mixture of theatrical drama and humorous situations makes this an appealing B drama where moral lessons show the hypocrisy in society, especially that complies unit called the American family.

Virginia Sale Rides Again!

[JohnHowardReid · 3/10 · 9 July 2009]

The Iron Master is a slow-moving Poverty Row bore that vainly attempts to generate some interest by filming in an actual iron foundry and with equal lack of success stages a cliff-hanger climax entirely with a far-too-obvious process screen. It's true that the Hoffmans (father and son) did try to make something of this "B". They hired Chester M. Franklin (the brother of Sidney Franklin, Ches went on to direct his most famous film, Sequoia, the following year) and Reginald Denny (the super-popular silent star who, at this stage, was making a brave effort to recapture his fans by shedding his British accent and speaking a rough-and-ready American) and Lila Lee (another huge star of the silents, Lee simply never managed to re-invent her image for sound). It says much for the way the producers actually regarded the appeal of their fading stars that they handed the action climax not to Lee or Denny but to that perennial bit player and character actress, Virginia Sale.