Stagecoach

Plot synopsis:
In 1880, a motley group of strangers boards the east-bound stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona Territory to Lordsburg, New Mexico Territory. These travelers are unremarkable and ordinary at first glance. Among them are Dallas (Claire Trevor), a prostitute who is being driven out of town by the moralistic "Law and Order League"; an alcoholic doctor, Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell); pregnant Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), who is traveling to meet her cavalry officer husband; and whiskey salesman Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek).
When the stage driver, Buck (Andy Devine), looks for his normal shotgun guard, Marshal Curly Wilcox (George Bancroft) tells him that the guard is off searching for the fugitive Ringo Kid. Ringo broke out of prison after hearing that his father and brother had been murdered by Luke Plummer (Tom Tyler). Buck tells Curly that Plummer is in Lordsburg. Knowing that Ringo has vowed to avenge his father and brother, Curly decides to ride along as guard.
As the stage sets out, U.S. Cavalry Lieutenant Blanchard (Tim Holt) announces that Geronimo and his Apaches are on the warpath; his small troop will provide an escort to Dry Fork. At the edge of town, two more passengers flag down the stage and board: gambler and Southern gentleman Hatfield (John Carradine), and banker Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill), who is absconding with $50,000 embezzled from his bank.
Further along the road, the stage comes across the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), whose horse went lame and left him afoot. Even though they are friends, Curly has no choice but to take Ringo into custody. As the trip progresses, Ringo takes a strong liking to Dallas. Doc Boone gets drunk on Peacock's samples. When Doc Boone tells Peacock that he served as a doctor in the Union Army during the "War of the Rebellion," Hatfield quickly uses a Southern term, the "War for the Southern Confederacy."
The stage reaches Dry Fork, but the expected cavalry detachment has gone to Apache Wells. Buck wants to turn back, but Curly demands that the group vote. With only Buck and Peacock objecting, they decide to proceed on to Apache Wells. At lunch before departing, the group is taken aback when Ringo invites Dallas to sit at the main table, and Mrs. Mallory is clearly uncomfortable having lunch with a prostitute. Hatfield gives Mrs. Mallory a drink from his silver folding cup, rather than have her drink from the canteen directly. She recognizes the family crest on the cup, and asks Hatfield whether he was ever in Virginia. He says he won the flask in a card game, but also that he served in the Confederate Army under her father's command. When the stage reaches Apache Wells, Mrs. Mallory learns that her husband had been wounded in battle and has left; she faints and goes into labor. Doc Boone has to sober up and deliver the baby, and later Dallas emerges holding a healthy baby girl. Later that night, Ringo asks Dallas to marry him, and live on a ranch he owns in Mexico. Afraid to reveal her checkered past, she does not answer immediately. The next morning, she accepts, if he will give up vengeance on the Plummers. He agrees. But she does not want to leave Mrs. Mallory and the new baby, so she tells him to go alone, and that she will meet him later. Encouraged, Ringo escapes - but then sees smoke signals heralding an Apache attack, and returns. The passengers quickly gather their belongings and leave.
The stage reaches Lee's Ferry, where Apaches have burned the station and ferry, and killed the station-keeper and his family. Curly uncuffs Ringo to help lash logs to the stagecoach and float it across the river. Just when they think that danger has passed, the Apaches attack. A long chase scene follows, with stunt work staged by Yakima Canutt. Peacock and Buck are hit, and the party all run out of ammunition. As Hatfield is about to use his last bullet to save Mrs. Mallory from being taken alive, he is mortally wounded. Just then, the 6th U.S. Cavalry rides up to rescue the stage.
The stage finally arrives in Lordsburg. Gatewood is arrested by the local sheriff, and Mrs. Mallory learns that her husband's wound is not serious. Peacock invites everyone to visit him in Kansas City. Mrs. Mallory thanks Dallas, who gives Mrs. Mallory her shawl. As he dies, Hatfield asks Mrs. Mallory to tell his family that he died bravely. Dallas begs Ringo not to confront the Plummers, but he is determined to settle matters. Curly lets him go (with a gun, but with just three bullets left after the Indian fight).
Luke Plummer, hearing that Ringo is in town, gets up from a poker game, leaving a hand of aces and eights. Plummer takes up a shotgun (an unfair weapon), but Doc Boone blocks his path, demanding that he leave it - or kill Doc first. Plummer leaves the shotgun, to Doc's relief, and joins his two brothers.
A shootout follows, which is heard but not seen. Ringo reappears, having killed the three Plummers, and surrenders to Curly, expecting to go back to prison. He asks Curly to take Dallas to his ranch. Ringo boards a wagon and says goodbye to Dallas, and Curly invites Dallas to ride with them to the edge of town. After she climbs aboard, Curly and Doc laugh and start the horses moving, letting Ringo "escape" with Dallas.

Tags: cult, revenge, murder

Review:
Ford, working from script by Dudley Nichols and Ben Hecht, based on a short story, "Stage to Lordsburg", by Ernest Haycox (which itself bears a relation to Guy de Maupassant's "Boule de Suif", 1880), keeps the proceedings in check by only giving us the information we need to explore the evolving relationships, and only focusing on each character when they're important to the plot.
This scene was an inspiration for a similar stunt in Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).Although it's not a "perfect" film to me, and it's not even my favorite western (I'm more partial to the classic spaghetti westerns, for example), Stagecoach is a very good film and was very influential, despite being made at a time when Ford was told that he was committing professional suicide by even contemplating a western.
Donald Meek plays his name, a meek whiskey salesman befriended by the whiskey-loving Doc. Each actor quickly and deftly sketches his character so vividly that every performance is memorable.But the real star of the show is John Ford, the director.
Much of the action takes place in the limited confines of a stagecoach, but Ford takes advantage of the limits by staging brilliant and subtle bits between characters; John Wayne casts sultry glances at Clare Trevor, who blossoms under his glance, the young calvary wife's eyes glaze over as the banker pontificates, and Doc sneaks sips of whiskey from the samples case while he solicitously keeps the wind from chilling the whiskey salesman.
Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Interior Decoration, Best Film Editing, Best Supporting Actor (won) and Best Score (won), Stagecoach was John Ford's first sound Western and elevated the genre in both critical praise and popularity.
By the time the film ends, you will know all of the characters very well and ,for the most part,care whether they live or die.John Ford's excellent directing, great performances from John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine and, especially, Thomas Mitchell who won an Acadamy Award for his portrayal of a drunken doctor aboard the stage.
One of my favorite movie shots of all time comes in Stagecoach when the coach rounds a bend and you see a figure in the distance and has the camera zooms in closer you recognize it as John Wayne, saddle in one hand and winchester rifle in the other.Certainly the figure of John Wayne is familiar enough even to today's moviegoers as the man who put more people in theater seats than any other player.
It is a dramatization of the western novel by Ernest Haycox and John Ford brilliantly cast his film.Anyone of them could have been Oscar material, but one player did win an Oscar, Thomas Mitchell as the alcoholic Doc Boone.
I won't say more, but think about the fact that he repeated the same shot in Fort Apache with the Indians chasing John Agar and the repair party there.What I like most about Stagecoach altogether is that it sticks to the first rule of movies, it moves.
There is convict John Wayne (in his star-making role), scorned prostitute Claire Trevor, drunken doctor Thomas Mitchell (in a well-deserved Oscar-winning role), slick gambler John Carradine, pregnant youngster Louise Platt, shady banker Berton Churchill, whiskey salesman Donald Meek, lawman George Bancroft and driver Andy Devine on this star-studded ride.
"Stagecoach" does not only benefit from its actors and screenplay though as legendary director John Ford (Oscar-nominated) shows his ability to mix and mesh quiet, heartfelt moments with amazingly detailed action sequences that were way ahead of their time.
An American classic nevertheless with director John Ford bringing his valley in Arizona which he would later use with star John Wayne in The Searchers and She wore a Yellow Ribbon, among others for himself as director, to the film of the tale of a group of people all stuck together on a stagecoach.
The rest of the cast are also good in their various roles, while the characters are broad they all play it well, especially Trevor, Devine, Mitchell and Carradine.Overall this is a solid western that has good action (include a great stunt that was lifted directly into Raiders of the Lost Ark) but also has characters and interactions which make for a polished and enjoyable movie..
The other characters in `Stagecoach' are excellent as well, but it's Claire Trevor and John Wayne who really make the film enjoyable.
His character's essentially a cross between W.C. Fields and Yoda, and while I'm not sure who else was in contention for the Best Supporting Actor award with Mr. Mitchell, I find it hard to believe that this was, in fact, the best supporting performance captured on film in the year 1939.)John Ford's direction is excellent as well.
A voyage throughout Arizona with varied group of characters , a strange assortment of individuals formed by a prostitute (Claire Trevor, who received top-billing) , a coward swank (Donald Meek) , a crooked card-player (John Carradine) turned into protector to pregnant young wife (Louis Platt) , a philosopher alcoholic doctor (Thomas Mitchell , deservedly winner Oscar) , a swindler banker (Barton Churchill) , a sheriff (George Bancroft), a sympathetic coach driver (Andy Devine) and , of course , Ringo Kid (John Wayne , who arose his career languishing in Poverty Row) .
Therefore, if you can forget the 6 or 7 decades of baggage that trailed after this movie, baggage that has turned up not just in Westerns but in other genres such as film noir and romantic comedies and  "disaster epics", then the freshness of *Stagecoach*  becomes readily apparent.Oddly enough, the movie seems at first to be a cowboy spoof of  *Grand Hotel*  in the manner in which it throws together its 7 archetypal characters into the stagecoach for the long journey to Lordsburg.
This plot was used, for example, in the Paul Newman film "Hombre" and has also been used in non-Westerns, such as the British-made "North-West Frontier", set in India, and "The Journey", about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.In this instance the motley group is travelling by stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona, to Lordsburg, New Mexico.
(The same is also true of Wayne's last film, "The Shootist", from nearly forty years later).Some of the scenes in the film make use of what were later to become standard Western clichés, notably the final shootout between the Kid and his enemies the Plummer brothers and the Indian attack on the stagecoach, thwarted by the timely arrival of the cavalry.
Those that stand out are from Wayne, from Trevor as the prostitute Dallas, from Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone and from John Carradine as the slightly dubious Hatfield.The film is based upon a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox, but there are also similarities to Guy de Maupassant's short story, "Boule de Suif", another story of a wartime journey by stagecoach which also features a prostitute as one of the main characters.
It announced to Hollywood that the west was a place in which stories could be told.Stagecoach also marked a turning point in the career of John Ford  his first shoot in Monument Valley, his first time working with John Wayne and not to mention his first western since the silent era.
Take for example the character of the Ringo Kid. Stagecoach was made at a time when there was a massive hoo-hah in Hollywood about gangster films turning criminals into heroes, and films like Angels with Dirty Faces came along to reverse that image, but with Ringo the outlaw is once again a likable rogue who deserves to escape the law.But, in spite of this being a very "wild" west, it's still a comparatively rosy picture Ford is painting, with all the innocence of 1930s cinema.
He played "The Ringo Kid." Well, I'm glad for him; he was a fine actor.As he did with his later westerns, director John Ford gave us some nice looks at Monument Valley.
One of the most influential movies of all time.Stunning photograhy and very well acted, how people can find fault with this film is beyond belief.Personally  I would never let these people into a movie theatre again and ban them from dvds and videos.Orson Welles when asked to name his top 3 directors said John Ford ,John Ford ,John Ford, which says it all really.The film made John Wayne a star, the biggest movie star theres ever been , and won Thomas Mitchell the best supporting actor award.John Carradine gives an excellent performance as confederate gambler and Claire Trevor is the tart with a heart.Watch enjoy and admire a great western by a great director and the start of a great career for the Duke..
In this case, he heads an ensemble cast of dynamic supporting actors in one of the best Westerns of the era.Before I go any further, I should mention that I've seen this film several times but only this last time did I realize that this movie is actually a re-working of the old Chester Morris film, FIVE CAME BACK.
However, apart from this, the films are remarkably similar--with many of the same style characters--such as the "fallen woman" who in the end proves that she is "true blue", the embezzler, and all the rest of the characters are so similar that at times I mixed the movies up in my head.Both are superb films, but I have got to give the nod to STAGECOACH as the better of the two films due mostly to some amazing stunt and camera-work.
On board we have Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), Dallas (Claire Trevor), the always drunken Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell), Hatfield (John Carradine), Peacock (Donald Meek), Gatewood (Berton Churchill), Marshal Curly Wilcox (George Bancroft), his prisoner The Ringo Kid (John Wayne) and Buck (Andy Devine) as the driver.
Before John Ford's majestic Stagecoach was released in 1939, the western genre was festering in B-movie hell.
It was at this point in his career when, at the age of 45 years old, Ford returned to the genre of his earlier films with "Stagecoach", his first Western since his silent classic "3 Bad Men", and not only meant a revolution of his own style (that very same year he would also direct three other gems: "Drums Along the Mohawk", "Young Mr. Lincoln" and "The Grapes of Wrath"), it was also a turning point for the Western genre, as pretty much as he had done previously with "The Iron Horse" in 1924, Ford took the genre once again to the level of art, and proved once again that Westerns were more than silly shoot'em up stories of cowboys and Indians.
With "Stagecoach" Ford not only introduced a new way to make Westerns, he also introduced the world to one of the most enduring icons of cinema: John Wayne."Stagecoach" is essentially the tale of a simple stagecoach trip across the dangerous lands where Geronimo and his Apache warriors are preparing for War against the U.S. Army.
The travelers inside the stagecoach include a young woman (Louise Platt) hoping to reunite with his husband, who is a member of the Cavalry, a whiskey salesman (Donald Meek), a moody banker (Berton Churchill), and four persons of "bad reputation": a gambler (John Carradine), a drunk doctor (Thomas Mitchell), a prostitute (Claire Trevor) and the infamous outlaw Ringo (John Wayne).
Together with the driver (Andy Devine) and the Marshall (George Bancroft) watching over the stagecoach (and Ringo), the odd group will find themselves not only worried about the apaches, but about each other's secrets as well.While virtually a mix of road movie and Western, what makes the plot of the movie (written by Dudley Nichols) really interesting is the way he plays with the characters and their relationships.
Of course, "Stagecoach" still retains many of the elements of the typical Western of its time, but yet, it shows that like Ford, writer Dudley Nichols was decided to make "Stagecoach" something more than another Western by adding a considerable amount of character driven drama.As written above, it is in this movie when finally the "Ford style for Westerns" is born, as he takes the genre to the level of art by his excellent use of cinematography (by Bert Glennon) to capture for the first time in his career, the amazing landscapes of Mountain Valley.
While books could be (and have been) written about Ford's visual style, it's worth to point out that specifically this film is very character driven, and Fords proves to be up to this challenge with great control and superb storytelling skill.After building a 10 years long career as a star of B-Movie westerns, John Wayne finally proved that he could be a real Hollywood star with his remarkable performance as Ringo Kid in this film.
A classic with everything that you want in a Western, "Stagecoach" may be a little old-fashioned, but it's still one of the best movies of its kind.
For example, one particularly good shot occurs when the cavalry unit that escorted the stagecoach for the first step of its journey has to go in a different direction - there is a slow shot of the path splitting in two, with the stage taking one fork and the cavalry the other.While some aspects of "Stagecoach" may be dated (such as the portrayal of Indians), this is still an excellent Western, and it is also worth watching for anyone who likes classic movies of any kind..
Renowned as one of the greatest films of a great year, 1939, this John Ford goodie, running at just over an hour and a half, is perfectly shot and well-written by Dudley Nichols.Top of the cast is a young-looking John Wayne, in one of his best roles and oozing star quality as the Ringo Kid. Stand-outs alongside him include prickly Claire Trevor as good-time-girl Dallas; twittery Donald Meek as salesman Samuel Peacock; and Thomas Mitchell - seen in another great film of 1939 as Scarlett O'Hara's dad - as the boozy Doctor Boone.One of those rare films that is just a pleasure to watch.
Bancroft).Ford in this film dramaturgical structure whose end also brings a denouement developed to perfection, impressive character profiling a group of very diverse people face significant risks, gradually revealing the true nature of all of them and in the center puts romance hearted girl formal dubious morals and boys also formally outside Act. Ford and subtle moralist who never condemned, indeed, an impressive realist, and a great director of action sequences, and innovator and respects the genre.Stagecoach is a film that exudes freshness and stays long in the memory..
"Stagecoach" definitely seemed like a flop at the box office: An big budget western starring John Wayne, who had, beforehand, been in less-than-successful films.
But Ford stuck to his guns, and rightly so, for now Stagecoach can be seen as a wonderful film that not only launched Wayne to stardom, but also as the film that reignited the Western genre and paved the way for some essential classics that followed.John Ford's first sound Western is rich with character dynamics at play, with the great director exploring what would become a trademark theme of his, that of moral qualities born out of people deemed less pure in society's eyes.
That Ford is able to marry sharp action with real human drama-intimate drama played out on a massive panoramic landscape-is why Stagecoach continually entertains and influences with each passing year.From the moment Ford zooms up close on the face of John Wayne, a mega-star was born, but more importantly, from the opening credits to the last second of Stagecoach, the Western movie was reborn.
Its reputation rests largely on being the first western to deal explicitly with 'serious' issues in an intelligent, uncompromising way without losing sight of the entertainment value inherent in good old Cowboy and Indian pictures, in establishing Monument Valley as a key Ford location and in giving us a new star in John Wayne, (his introduction on the road is legendary), even though the actor had been around for almost a decade.
Stagecoach is pretty much everything you would expect from a western film in the early 1940's, starring John Wayne.
All in all if you are into westerns of this time period you will more than likely enjoy this film, or if you are interested in some great camera work..
One of the finest examples of the standard western, a good introduction to John Ford and a small hint as to the reason behind Wayne's popularity.The film handles an unremarkable story expertly.
John Wayne is a total stud, I can see why this movie elevated his career and ultimately set the pace for western genre films.
Colorful characters where the key of success of this picture,break up those things about top billing casting,the drunk doctor,the gambler,the sallon girl,the fugitive, the soldier's wife,the xeriff,the banker and at last the stagecoach's driver each one has their moments to enrichment to the plot,every single scene has a meaning,the two stop schedule to change horses along the trip provide a propper development of the characters with each other,Andy Devine as Buck stolen the show,the rotund funny character amuzing us with his silly lines,Duke became a star,and Mitchell as a doctor has his redemption at last......this movie was a turning point for John Ford's succsess career with the great breathtaking backdrop of monument valley...your favorite spot!!Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 9.
This film is a great starter for people who want to watch westerns and get into classic movies.
This is the first fist movie i have ever seen with John Wayne and it wont be my last he seemed to be a very good actor in this film.
John Ford brings us Stagecoach with a whole new look about western films.
This movie was amazing to watch from start to finish John Wayne is a classic western character and Stagecoach is a classic film.
Overall a great western movie, I love John Wayne as an actor..