Stagecoach
Directed John Ford
US 1939
STAGECOACH - The movie that invented all the western cliches.
A lot of people think this was Wayne's first major role - it wasn't, that honour goes to Raoul Walsh's 1930 The Big Trail. But Stagecoach was the actor's, already a veteran, breakthrough role.
Wayne plays The Ringo Kid, a good badman who is on a stagecoach with a motley bunch of passengers as they cross hostile Indian land on their way to Lordsburg. Upon the stage is a prostitute, played by Claire Trevor, a drunken doctor, a gambler, a soldier's pregnant wife and a whiskey salesman.
The doc is played by Thomas Mitchell who provides much of the comic relief. The other main characters are the coach driver and a sheriff who want to take The Ringo Kid back to the pen.
The introduction of Wayne's character is a fine dolly shot that swoops in for an extreme close up and has been copied many times since.
The Indian attack on the stagecoach is precisely what cinema was invented for and even now, 70 years after the fact, it is as fresh and exciting as ever.
Wayne is arguably the world's most famous screen cowboy and for that reason alone this film deserves a place in every western fans collection. Add to that the fact that it was the first time Ford filmed in Monument Valley and that it's such an excellent movie and it become essential.
For Wild West Monday I'll be:
"Well, there's a chain of stores in my area that has every genre of paperback imaginable except westerns. I'm planning to talk to the managers of each store and ask them to stock western titles. I plan to carry a list of titles and where they can order them from. This will be my small contribution."
DAVID CRAMER - The education of a pulp writer. Beat to a Pulp
4 comments:
I loved this movie when I saw it, for the attention to detail of the teams of horses used to pull the coach. Long distance coach trips had teams of three or four pairs. The zoom into the trees of the horses and coach as they gallop into view sends goosebumps down my back and arms every time I see it. My mother told me the coaches in the early 1900s often had three pairs of horses in Alberta for the long ditance travel because they weren't changed often and it eased the burden of the weight they pulled.
Apart from the horses in the western movies, I do enjoy the stories and, of course, the magnificent John Wayne.
Great stunt work by Yakima Canutt, among others, as well.
Yeah I forgot Canutt -was he maybe the first stuntman to gain real fame?
"...a fine dolly shot" Love it! I don't think like this when I'm watching a movie. I'm going to try to start, though.
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