Stagecoach by John Ford ★★★★★
The iconic 1939 black and white western Stagecoach by the legendary American director John Ford is one of the most influential films of all time. Orson Welles -a legendary filmmaker in his own right- once stated that Stagecoach is a perfect blueprint for making a good movie and that watching it is like going to film school. Reportedly, Welles watched Stagecoach about 40 times in preparation for his own (even more influential) masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941): Welles' brilliant directorial film debut, released two years after Stagecoach.
Adventurous
The enduring legacy of Stagecoach, which is considered a timeless classic by movie lovers around the world, is largely due to the captivating screenplay (written by Dudley Nichols), combining adventure, comedy, drama and subtle romance.
Based on the 1937 short story The Stage to Lordsburg by the prolific writer of western fiction Ernest Haycocox, the film is set in 1880 and follows a stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona to Lordsburg, New Mexico, through the territory of the rebellious Apache leader Geronimo and his indians, who are on the warpath...
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The action-packed stagecoach chase,
with Yakima Canutt as stunt double for starring actor John Wayne. |
Misfits
The stagecoach is driven by Buck (played by Andy Devine) and carries eight, seemingly incompatible passengers:
- the young cowboy and fugitive Henry aka the Ringo Kid (played by John Wayne);
- the marshal Curly Wilcox (George Bancroft), who takes the Ringo Kid in custody;
- the pregnant young lady Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt);
- the gentleman gambler Hatfield (John Carradine);
- the prostitute Dallas (Claire Trevor);
- the flamboyant alcoholic Doc Josiah Boone (Thomas Mitchell);
- the timid whiskey salesman Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek);
- and the unreliable banker Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill).
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From left to right: Buck, Curly, Hatfield,
Peacock, Lucy, Dallas and the Ringo Kid. |
Director John Ford doesn't hide his sympathy for the social misfits in his Stagecoach, preferring the authenticity of the brave Ringo Kid, the lonely prostitute Dallas, the well-mannered gambler Hatfield and the happy-go-lucky drunk Doc Boone to the hypocrisy of so called 'respectable citizens' like the banker, who turns out to be nothing more than a coward and a thief.
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Dallas keeps her pride while she's being
chased out of town by the Law & Order Leage. |
In one of the first sequences, Ford makes fun of the women of the Law & Order Leage in Tonto, who chase the prostitute Dallas and the drunk Doc Boone out of town. Ford exposes these women of the Law & Order Leage for what they really are: uptight and biased social justice warriors with misguided moral standards, who judge people, without really knowing them, by their appearance and reported reputation instead of by their true character. This nonconformist critique of bourgeois puritanism runs through the film as its underlying theme, which shouldn't surprise anyone, since Ford himself was an old-fashioned, cigar-smoking and whiskey-drinking man, who loathed political correctness.
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Hilarious interaction between the alcoholic Doc Boone (left)
and the whiskey salesman Samuel Peacock. |
Archetypes
In addition to the entertaining story and the crispy dialogues, Stagecoach also features beautiful cinematography (by Bert Glennon), including wide shots of the impressive landscapes (one of Ford's trademarks), a fitting, Oscar-winning musical score (based on old American folk songs) and fine acting, with a breakthrough performance by the young John Wayne as the Ringo Kid in Wayne's first starring role, delicate acting by Claire Trevor as the disillusioned prostitute Dallas, and funny performances by Donald Meek as the soft-spoken whiskey salesman Samuel Peacock and by Thomas Mitchell as the sympathetic drunk Doc Boone (which earned Mitchell an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor).
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The famous shot that introduced John Wayne's
breakthrough role of the Ringo Kid to the world. |
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| A wide shot of Monument Valley in Utah. |
Today, almost 80 years after Stagecoach established some of the most recognizable archetypes in the western genre -the hooker with the heart of gold, the dandyish gambler, the funny town drunk, the exciting stagecoach chase, the impressive vistas of Monument Valley in Utah, et cetera...- these archetypes have long since become clichés. Well, now you know where they came from before they were clichés, and why they became clichés: they were at the heart of John Ford's Stagecoach and they worked like a charm.
Joeri Naanai
Stagecoach - USA - 1939.
Cast: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Thomas Mitchell, Donald Meek, Louise Platt, John Carradine, George Bancroft, Andy Devine and Berton Churchill.
Genre: western / adventure
