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The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film)

1936 film by David Howard

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ20649715 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Mine with the Iron Door is a 1936 American adventure western film directed by David Howard and starring Richard Arlen, Cecilia Parker and Henry B. Walthall. It is an adaptation of Harold Bell Wright's novel of the same title which had previously been turned into a 1924 silent The Mine with the Iron Door.

The film's sets were designed by the art directors Ben Carré and Lewis J. Rachmil.

Plot

Cast

Richard Arlen as Bob Harvey

Cecilia Parker as Marta Hill

Henry B. Walthall as David Burton

Stanley Fields as Dempsey

Spencer Charters as Thad Hill

Charles C. Wilson as Pitkins

Barbara Bedford as Secretary

Horace Murphy as Garage Man

Buck the Dog as Buck

Lester Dorr as Minor Role

Earl Gibbs as Indian

References

Bibliography

Goble, Alan. The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter, 1999.

Editorial summary

“The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film)” enters the record as 1936 film by David Howard. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mine, Iron and Door can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1936, 1924, 1999—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1936. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Mine, Iron and Door.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mine, Iron and Door provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20649715. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1924 and 1999.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film) primary sources, The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film) archive and Mine research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Mine with the Iron Door (1936 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.