stagec.html

On February 10, 1939, "Stagecoach" the Western film directed by John Ford, starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne, premiered in Miami. Perhaps the greatest Western of all time! From the article:

"Stagecoach (1939) is a classic Western from film auteur John Ford. This film - his first sound Western - was a return to his most-acclaimed film genre after a thirteen year absence following Fox's Three Bad Men (1926) (and The Iron Horse (1924)). In the meantime, he had produced the superb, Oscar-winning drama about Irish republicanism, RKO's The Informer (1935).This film debuted John Ford's favorite setting - the majestic Monument Valley of the Southwest - the first of seven films he made in the famed western valley, followed by My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Searchers (1956), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).Ford's reputation was elevated considerably by this film - it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Black and White Cinematography, Best Interior Decoration, and Best Film Editing, and won two awards for Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Mitchell) and Best Score (for its compilation of 17 American folk tunes of the 1880s). This Ford Western paved the way for all his other memorable Westerns, including My Darling Clementine (1946), his "Cavalry" trilogy, The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). An inferior, Technicolor remake was attempted by Gordon Douglas in the 60s, Stagecoach (1966) with Bing Crosby, Ann-Margret, Robert Cummings, Stefanie Powers, and Red Buttons.This revolutionary, influential film - a story of redemption - is considered a landmark quintessential film that elevated westerns from cheaply-made, low-grade, Saturday matinee "B" films to a serious adult genre - one with greater sophistication, richer Western archetypes and themes, in-depth and complex characterizations, and greater profitability and popularity as well.
[Note: By 1939, the Western genre had fallen out of favor, but Stagecoach helped reinvent the genre, providing for its rebirth. It must be remembered however, that 1939 also saw the release of other blockbuster Westerns including Union Pacific, Dodge City, The Oklahoma Kid, Ford's own Technicolor Drums Along the Mohawk, Destry Rides Again and Jesse James.]
The film's sophisticated screenplay by Dudley Nichols (who won the Best Screenplay Oscar for Ford's The Informer (1935) and was a frequent collaborator with Ford), about the perilous adventures of a group aboard a stagecoach across Indian country between two frontier settlements during a sudden Apache uprising, was based on Ernest Haycox's Collier's Magazine short story "The Stage to Lordsburg," (appearing in April, 1937). But it also bears a slight resemblance and was inspired by Guy de Maupassant's Boule de Suif (literally 'Tub of Lard'), the story of a prostitute (Boule de Suif) traveling in a carriage through Prussian-occupied, war-torn France during the Franco-Prussian War with refugees who are prominent members of the French bourgeoisie. Director Ford also wove into the story colorful Western characters from Bret Harte's The Outcasts of Poker Flat.As in other films of the 1930s including Grand Hotel (1932), Shanghai Express (1932), and Lost Horizon (1937), colorful, vividly-portrayed, widely-varied characters ("nine strange people") of clashing social classes/values are thrown together by fate and closely confined for a period of time as a group:
Nine Characters
Description
Dallas (Claire Trevor) a prostitute (or dance hall gal) forced to leave town
Ellsworth Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill) an embezzling banker
Hatfield (John Carradine) a former Confederate, a card-shark gambler
Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek) a whiskey salesman
Doc Josiah Boone (Thomas Mitchell) an alcoholic, disgraced frontier doctor (surgeon)
Mrs. Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt) a pregnant young bride, the wife of an Army cavalry officer en route to his post
Buck Rickabaugh (Andy Devine) a stage driver
Marshal Curley Wilcox (George Bancroft) a Marshal riding shotgun
the Ringo Kid (John Wayne in a breakthrough role a rugged, escaped outlaw, who is picked up on the road shortly after the coach's departure
They act out in their relationships their representative social types. In Stagecoach, nine passengers during a stagecoach journey are placed together in a position of danger, one in which their true characters are tested and revealed. Major social issues and themes (sexual and social prejudice, alcoholism, childbirth, greed, shame, redemption and revenge) are closely mixed together into an exciting adventure story.The structure of the film is very formal, divided neatly into eight episodes (four scenes of action alternating with four scenes of character interaction)."