CommentsXp Best movie ever!

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

morrison-dylan-fan Nearing the end of the poll on ICM for the best movies of 1939,I started to check on Amazon UK for DVDs. Hearing about the impact it had on Citizen Kane,and also a fan of their team-up for The Long Voyage Home,I saddled up for the first collaboration between John Ford and The Duke.The plot:In 1880 a group of passengers get on the stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona Territory to Lordsburg, New Mexico Territory. Among the passengers are prostitute Dallas and alcoholic doctor Boone. Before setting off,Buck finds out that his regular guard has gone off to chase after outlaw Henry "The Ringo Kid" escaped jail so he can get revenge for Luke Plummer killing his dad and brother,which leads to Marshal Curly Wilcox taking the role of guard. Going into Apache land, the stagecoach team are soon met by the Apache's,and Ringo.View on the film:Riding into his first "talkie" Western, producer/ director John Ford & cinematographer Bert Glennon display a remarkable eye for using the soundtrack to build upon the images,from the pop of bullets darting round the screen,to the creaking sounds of the stagecoach highlighting how close the group are to danger at every turn. Going to Monument Valley for the first time, Ford looks across a valley of spectacular action,via wide-shots crisply following Yakima Canutt's stunt work, and stylish shots looking out of the window of the rumbling coach.Inspiring Orson Welles (who watched it over 40 times when making his debut) use of ceilings in Citizen Kane,Ford and Glennon brilliantly contrast the great outdoors action with an intimate,claustrophobic atmosphere,of the limited space in the rooms subtly bringing a closeness to Dallas and Ringo,and also squeezing the group into a tight space,where they must work with each other to escape. Loosely based on Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant (whose Bel Ami was wonderfully adapted in the same year) and Ernest Haycox's short story The Stage to Lordsburg,the screenplay by Dudley Nichols superbly gives every member of the gang their fair share of attention,which goes from the ill at ease Wilcox and dashing Ringo, to the playful Buck and alluring Dallas. Sending them round the track,Nichols makes each element of the group join into a thrilling team, with the cornering from the Apaches sanding down the dividing differences.The biggest name in the cast when the movie was made, Claire Trevor gives an excellent performance as prostitute (something the Hays Code had "issues" with) Dallas,thanks to Trevor making Dallas strong- willed against any of the guys,but also being well aware of the "outcast" status the job labels her with. Joined by a charming Andy Devine as Buck and a terrific George Bancroft as Wilcox, Da Duke gives a great performance as outlaw Ringo. Pushed around by Ford behind the scenes, Wayne bring out the rough treatment on screen by giving Ringo eyes a burning determination to see the stagecoach complete the journey.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 20 February 1939 by Walter Wanger Productions, Inc. A John Ford Production, presented by Walter Wanger. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall, 2 March 1939 (ran 2 weeks). U.S. release: 3 March 1939. Australian release: 27 July 1939. 10 reels. 96 minutes.SYNOPSIS: New Mexico, 1884. Apaches on the warpath.NOTES: Thomas Mitchell, Best Supporting Actor (defeating Brian Aherne in Juarez; Harry Carey in Mr Smith Goes To Washington; Brian Donlevy in Beau Geste; and Claude Rains in Mr Smith Goes To Washington). Best Adapted Music Score, Richard Hageman, Frank Harling, John Leipold, and Leo Shuken, defeating a line-up of 12 other scores including a Korngold and a Copland. Also nominated for Best Picture (Gone With The Wind); Directing (GWTW); Cinematography (Wuthering Heights); Art Direction (GWTW); Film Editing (GWTW).Best Direction, John Ford — New York Film Critics. Negative cost: $600,000. Combined U.S.-Canadian gross from original and 1944 release: $1,300,000. Re-made in 1966 by Gordon Douglas, with Anne- Margret as Dallas, Alex Cord as Ringo and (interestingly) Bing Crosby as Doc Boone.COMMENT: "Stagecoach" is one of the most popular westerns ever made. The reasons are not hard to find: More action that you can poke 101 rifles at (including the most excitingly-staged Indian attack ever filmed), set against the most awesomely magnificent scenery, a cast of likable and seasoned players, and handsome production values including a jaunty music score which adds further momentum to an already pell-mell pace. Ford's craftsmanship — his eye for arresting detail and dramatic composition, his unerring sense of flow and movement, his ability to draw involving characterizations from his players — was never more evident. One of the most remarkable qualities of Ford's genius is his unerring ability to top himself. On paper, the Lordsburg shoot-out looks like becoming an anti-climax after the dynamic thrills of the stage chase. But Ford is more than equal to the challenge. That shoot-out is equally as edge-of-the- seat suspenseful because of Ford's imagination and skill. He is a master at creating atmosphere and mood, he has a feeling for people and places that lifts the action, characters, setting and dialogue of his scripts to the highest emotional plane of sympathy and involvement."Stagecoach" made John Wayne a major star, but although he was to make many outstanding movies in the rest of his career (some again with Ford), he never equaled the vitality, the unassuming doggedness of the Ringo Kid. This is the John Wayne that most moviegoers remember.AVAILABLE on an excellent Criterion DVD.

tomgillespie2002 Before John Ford's majestic Stagecoach was released in 1939, the western genre was festering in B-movie hell. While we can all now agree that the genre can encompass just about every sort of human experience and underlying theme imaginable, in the 1930s it had become a joke; simplistic and goofy tales of good guys in white versus bad guys in black that were little more than an excuse to deliver an action scene or two. Although he had made a staggering amount of pictures by the time he directed Stagecoach, John Ford left it relatively late in his career to become the lauded auteur he would be remembered as being when he adapted Ernest Haycox's short story The Stage to Lordsburg.Stagecoach is special indeed. Not only did it revitalise a flailing genre, but it seems to give birth to another - something more classical, thoughtful and mythical. This is, in part, down to the casting of John Wayne as The Ringo Kid, an actor who became so synonymous with the role that he spent his entire career both embracing and running away from it. Already a veteran of around eighty movies made for 'Poverty Row', the still-young Duke was only cast after Ford stubbornly insisted on it, while the studio wanted Gary Cooper. Ford knew he would be a star, and the director certainly gives him an introduction worthy of a screen giant. As we first meet the Kid, cocking his rifle as a tracking shot brings us close to his face, it's inconceivable just how Ford was the only one to recognise his screen presence.Yet Wayne is only one of a magnificent ensemble of characters flung together in the claustrophobic stagecoach as it heads closer towards towards hostile Indian territory. Everyone on board seems to wrestle with their own vice or prejudice, including effeminate whiskey salesman Peacock (Donald Meek), brooding Southern gambler Hatfield (John Carradine), and shifty banker Gatewood (Berton Churchill). The two largest roles go to Claire Trevor as kind-hearted prostitute Dallas and Thomas Mitchell as the alcoholic Doc Boone, the latter winning an Academy Award for his efforts as the blow-hard whose realisation of his own flaws become his redemption. The two are set on their journey after being thrown out of town by the 'Ladies' Law and Order League' - a group of busybodies who begrudge any sort of moral taint on their town - as Doc cries social prejudice.The idea of social prejudice being rampant in a country guilty of its own recent atrocities is a key theme running throughout, and Stagecoach is a surprisingly liberal movie, despite the depiction of the screaming Apaches, who play the enemy here. We spend a lot of time with the characters before we get to climactic action sequence, but the skill in which they are drawn and played, along with the fascination of watching these shunned personas unite against a common goal, means it never feels like Ford is making us wait. The Apache attack is a high-speed work of technical brilliance, featuring stunt work so nail-biting that you won't even stop to ponder why they don't just shoot the horses. It's so memorable that you'll forgive the redundant second climax featuring the Ringo Kid's unfinished business with the Plummer gang, and the sentiment that comes with it. Arguably the finest American western ever made,

j-goslin Like many of the other films in it's genre, the label of "Western" very accurately describes the film. The cinematography of this film accurately follows the action of the film and the vision of the director as to where the audience should be looking and when. This film uses sound to help connect the viewers to the action happening in the film and furthermore made the film that much more realistic. The scenery for this film has to be the strongest element. It's realisticness is such that it makes viewers believe that this was actually happening which leads to further enjoyment by the audience. The intensity of this movie also left the audience on the edge of their seats which tends to leave a lasting effect on them. This genre is not for everyone so if this doesn't sound appealing to you, you probably shouldn't watch it!