panned the great open spaces of the Southwest, seeking to capture on celluloid the dramatic panorama of the great frontier. None of them has succeeded like the legendary John Ford. Among his many excellent Westerns, Stagecoach stands out as one of his finest. The film was released in 1939, a very good year for the motion picture industry, as previously discussed on our last post. Stagecoach made a star of John Wayne as the Ringo Kid, although he had 
made innumerable “B” Westerns throughout the 30s prior to this particular film. Lovely Claire Trevor, who was rarely given the roles she deserved, excelled as Dallas, the loose woman gone straight. Thomas Mitchell received the “best supporting actor” Academy Award for his role as Doc Boone.The Apache-menaced plains of Arizona form the backdrop
for Ford’s adventure story. Thrown together on a stagecoach (driven by Andy Devine)and sharing a sense of impending disaster are a professional gambler and former Southern gentleman (John Carradine), a doctor given to drink (Mitchell), a devious banker (Berton Churchill), a brazen woman with a scandalous past (Trevor), a delicately pregnant, upper-class lady (Louise Platt), and a timid whiskey salesman (Donald Meek). Rounding out the group is a sheriff (George Bancroft) in search of the escaped outlaw, the Ringo Kid (Wayne), who
eventually joins them, having given himself up without a fight.Although the plot wasn’t really very original--the U.S. Cavalry rescues the stagecoach from attacking Apaches; the Ringo Kid, after a classic street shootout, is redeemed; and the young woman of questionable reputation falls for the Kid’s charms and rides off into the sunset with him--it was transformed
with Ford’s straightforward direction, magnificent location footage, crisply fresh dialogue, and marvelous acting. Ford believed that plot situations were only the starting point beyond which the director must go. And go he did-to take the Western motion picture to a whole new level of cinematic excellence.Ford and Wayne would make many Westerns together in future years
including the Cavalry trilogy of Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), but to most Western “purists”, Stagecoach is the very best of them all, the paradigm for one of the most popular of movie genres.**Trivia Question for Today: What favorite location of John Ford’s was first used in the filming of Stagecoach? The answer will appear in our next post.
Trivia Answer For Previous Post: Buddy Ebsen of “The Beverly Hillbillies” a
nd “Barnaby Jones” TV fame was originally the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. He became violently ill and nearly died due to inhaling the aluminum powder that was used in his Tin Man makeup and was replaced by Jack Haley in the role. Haley’s makeup was changed from that of Buddy Ebsen to prevent it from happening again. (Ebsen was replaced quite abruptly and unfairly while he was critically ill. He never quite got over how he was treated by the “powers-that-be” at MGM.) Check out “Let’s Talk Classic Movies” every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.We will be featuring more of the Fabulous Films of 1939 in the next few weeks. Don’t miss them!
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