Old Ironsides

Old Ironsides (1926)

WHAT A YARN!

An embellished account of the 1803 expedition by famed frigate U.S.S. Constitution--a.k.a. "Old Ironsides"--against the Barbary pirates then terrorizing American shipping, focusing on the crew and passengers of a fictional merchant ship, The Esther, who fall afoul of the same pirates and thus become involved with the Constitution's mission.

Date of release
1926-12-06
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (18)
Runtime
1h 54m
Genres
History, Drama
Director
James Cruze

Casting

Interesting facts

Old Ironsides is a 1926 American silent historical war film directed by James Cruze and starring Charles Farrell, Esther Ralston, Wallace Beery, George Bancroft and Boris Karloff in a small role. It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Production

The movie was shot in a widescreen process that Paramount promoted as "Magnascope". This process was used to heighten the visual effects in specific points in the film by switching to a larger "widescreen" thus enhancing the visual drama of the feature. It was reported that at the premiere of Old Ironsides the audience "stood up and cheered" when the Magnascope was activated.

This lavish oceangoing epic features battle scenes with sailing ships and pirates. The Maine-built ship Llewellyn J. Morse was refitted as USS Constitution. A real 1886 ship, S. N. Castle, was burned and sunk for the film off Catalina Island.

Box office receipts from the premiere at the Rialto Theater went to the USS Constitution restoration fund.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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