Stagecoach
(1939)*****
Produced by Walter
Wanger
Distributed by
United Artists
Director: John Ford
When we left off
last, we were looking at the build-up of the western through the
1930s and I had great plans for getting through the endless list of
John Wayne B-movies. To get a fresh start let's jump right through
the 30s and go straight to the big one. I am of course talking about
Stagecoach. This was the standard for all westerns to come
until the disgruntled westerns of the 1970s. John Ford's first
western starring John Wayne with outdoor sequences shot against the
backdrop of Monument Valley. Ford had made many westerns in the
silent era but this was his first talkie western. John Wayne, as we
know, had starred in The Big Trail in 1930 but
expensive production and innovative technology in the midst of the
Great Depression proved unsound and Wayne would spend the next 9
years making B-movies in Poverty Row. Stagecoach would lead
both Ford and Wayne into the limelight during the golden-age of the
western.
Stagecoach is set in
the Arizona and New Mexico territories in the 1880s. For the younger
viewers I would like to point out that this film is essentially The
Breakfast Club except instead of teenagers you have a random
assortment of townspeople and instead of detention they are all in a
stagecoach bound for Lordsburg, New Mexico in Geronimo-led Apache
territory. There are social misfits (drunk Doc Boone(Thomas Mitchell)
a prostitute (Claire Trevor) a whiskey salesman(Donald Meek) and a
well-to-do officer's wife (Louise Platt). Along the way they run into
the Ringo Kid(John Wayne) who recently escaped from jail and is headed
to Lordsburg to kill his father & brother's murderers. Throw in a
double-dealing banker(Burton Churchill) and a southern gentleman
(John Carradine – yep David's father) for good measure along with
the Marshal(George Bancroft) and a comedic driver(Andy Devine) and
you wonder how the heck so many people fit in a stagecoach. Sure
westerns were around before this but after this the studios knew they
could make money with them!
