In 1970, a collector leaves at the French Film Archives a western film entitled A Far West Drama made of four reels of dyed film on nitrate base. Nine months of restoration were necessary to give life back to the early work of one of the major Hollywood directors, a film which was thought to be lost.

The Archives oversee the restoration of the authentic print' defects: image instability and numerous scratches. The French intertitles, which had decomposed, are translated and replaced by English ones. Thirty long years later, the film is identified as being Bucking Broadway, thanks to the appearance of Harry Carey (1878-1947) on screen. Harry Carey plays in it the part of Cheyenne Harry. John Ford is indebted to him for his debuts as a Universal Studios director.

John Ford, who won 4 Oscars for Best Director, begins as an actor in Hollywood in 1914. Throughout his career, he develops the founding subject of the frontier, presenting protagonists of the conquest of the west: pioneers and cowboys, but also Indians (Fort Apache) and people of modest means (in his screen adaptation of Steinbeck' novel The Grapes of Wrath). His westerns such as Stagecoach or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, have made a deep impression on entire generations.

In Bucking Broadway, Cheyenne Harry marvelously incarnates the frontiersman. He owns a few acres of land and is hardworking. Moreover, John Ford presents with much humor the character' disregard for material goods in the clothes-fitting scene.

Carey becomes, thanks to John Ford, one of the most popular American western silent film actors. In the thirties, he moves on to other types of parts. He receives an Oscar nomination for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He will work again with John Ford in 1936 on The Prisoner of Shark Island.

The original music for this film was composed by Antonio Coppola in 2008.

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