Stagecoach (1939)

From my favorite movies..

A lot of fun.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

John Ford made many a masterpiece, particularly in the western genre. Stagecoach was the first of many. The film is full of great, well rounded characters who all have their own personal journeys. The cinematography is breathtaking for its time and the action is suspenseful and exciting. The story is full of great moments and I only wish it was longer so we could learn more about the characters. I've seen this story redone several times, most notably in "The Hateful Eight". That's a good film, and adds a nice mystery element, but it pales in comparison to "Stagecoach" Granted, the depictions of native Americans in the film leave something to be desired, and some of the less important characters lack character development (even though all the characters have their fair share of it). This does not deter the movie though. The acting is excellent. John Wayne, John Carradine, Claire Trevor and Thomas Mitchell are deserving of much praise. This movie is a top notch western still after all these years and is up there with the best of the genre. It also lives up to Ford's other masterpieces like "The Searchers" and "The Grapes of Wrath" 1939 is called by many historians and critics as the greatest year for film. This film is a great starter for people who want to watch westerns and get into classic movies. A timeless, must see classic.

For a film made in the 1930s, based in the 1880s, the class and political polarization still rings entirely true. Mostly a road-trip dramedy, it's filled with a top-rate collection of colorful characters, and it's such a pleasure getting to know them over 90 minutes. Once the classic and inventively shot western-action kicks in at the end, it adds excitement and volatility to the already stellar drama and humor.

One of the most comprehensive Westerns you'll ever see in that it contains all the familiar story lines, (what would become stereotypical) characters, scenery (e.g. Monument Valley) and other elements one associates with the genre. Appropriately, it was directed by John Ford and it features his first collaboration with lead actor John Wayne, whose role as the Ringo Kid helped to make him a star.Written by Dudley Nichols, who based his screenplay on an Ernest Haycox story, the credited cast also includes (top billed) Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar playing Doc Boone (a drunken doctor role remarkably similar to his only other Academy Award nominated performance in The Hurricane (1937) a few years earlier), Louise Platt, George Bancroft, Donald Meek, Berton Churchill, Tim Holt, and Tom Tyler.The film also received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, director Ford, Editing, Art Direction, and B&W Cinematography; its Score won an Oscar. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1995. #63 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list.Dallas (Trevor) and Doc Boone (Mitchell) are being run out of town by its more proper residents; she for being a prostitute, he for his drunkenness on the job. Marshal Curly Wilcox (Bancroft) makes sure both make it onto that afternoon's (titled) stage, driven by the talkative (to the point of annoyance) Buck, played by Devine, whose over loud and cracking voice are perfect(ly obnoxious) for the role. Society's Lucy Mallory (Platt) insists on traveling to rendezvous with her husband, despite having to share the coach with the shunned Dallas. Gambler Hatfield (Carradine), smitten with Mrs. Mallory, decides to go along as well. Doc is thrilled to assist the reluctant liquor salesman Samuel Peacock (the apt named Meek) aboard with his (soon to be free) samples too.When cavalry Lieutenant Blanchard (Holt) arrives to tell of Apaches on the route, Marshal Wilcox decides to ride shotgun. On the way out of town, they pick up banker Henry Gatewood (Churchill) who, unbeknownst to the others, has just embezzled some valuable assets.Along the way through Monument Valley, they encounter an escaped prisoner, The Ringo Kid (the camera zooms in, and then focuses on Wayne), who's wanted for avenging one who'd killed his brother and vows to get the rest, Luke Plummer (Tyler) and his two brothers, to finish the job. The marshal arrests him on the spot.Dallas is the hooker with the heart of gold that dreams the impossible dream of finding a more normal happiness as Ringo's wife; upon joining the others, he was instantly taken with her and, without knowing her past, had insisted that the others treat her as a lady, like Mrs. Mallory. She turns out to be pregnant, in the days when showing this fact (i.e. gaining a lot of weight) was frowned upon, which explains why she's so intent on reaching her husband.Doc is quickly sobered up and called into action. Upon his success, he's suddenly respected by the others for the first time on the journey. Dallas earns Mrs. Mallory's appreciation by assisting with the delivery and caring for her child. Of course, the stagecoach makes it through Indian territory; initially they'd had to go it alone without an escort, but the cavalry arrives just in time (as they've run out of bullets and Hatfield was just about to use his last shot to save Mrs. Mallory the horror of falling under the savages control) to save the day.Upon arriving in town, Gatewood is arrested and Ringo has his showdown with the Plummers, with predictable results, while the supportive Marshal decides to look the other way. As the story ends, Dallas and Ringo ride off into the sunrise (presumably, he's to serve the rest of his time in prison while she waits at his ranch).

. . . STAGECOACH 2010 Criterion DVD commentator Jim Kitses seems to say, is for all the would-be Navy SEAL types to marry hookers and move to Mexico. (If you borrow a disc from someone to watch a movie you've heard things about, it's probably a good idea to make sure that the audio is not stuck in an alternate Yak Track.) Kitses says that there's little dialog in STAGECOACH (this is more than made up for by his continual droning on and on during the soundtrack to which I had access). Kitses says that Senator Joe "Sig Heil!" McCarthy's infamous 1950s Witch Hunt Hollywood Supersnitchers--STAGECOACH director John Ford and "actor" John "Ringo Kid" Wayne--were liberal dues-paying Communists a decade earlier, in their STAGECOACH days. I find this assertion pretty tough to swallow, since Kitses also reveals that Mr. Ford rode with the Ku Klux Klan even before that. While Kitses no doubt is correct in saying that STAGECOACH is hardly a "John Wayne movie," but rather a Chick Flick with a desert chase scene thrown in, it probably would have been nice to hear a few more lines of its original dialog (rather than Kitses opining "Claire Trevor Blah Blah Madonna Blah Blah Cleansed, Redeemed, and Saved Blah Blah Prolonged Soulful Gaze").