Cinema
Stagecoach
John Ford · 1939
Synopsis
A stagecoach leaves Tonto, Arizona, for Lordsburg, New Mexico, as Geronimo and the Apaches have taken up arms. On board: Lucy Mallory, pregnant, who is going to join her husband, an officer; Dallas, a prostitute driven out of town; Doc Boone, a drunken doctor evicted by his landlady; a whisky salesman; Hatfield, a gambler; then Gatewood, a banker who is carrying off the till. The driver and the sheriff hold the box seat. On the way, they pick up Ringo, an escaped prisoner, whom the sheriff arrests: he wants to avenge his father and his brother against the Plummer brothers.
Context
The director had not made a western since 1926; this one, his first sound western, is drawn from a short story by Ernest Haycox published in Collier's in 1937. The producer wanted Gary Cooper; Ford insisted on John Wayne, whose reputation as a B-movie actor made the film hard to finance, and it made his name. It was also Ford's first film shot in Monument Valley, straddling Utah and Arizona, where he returned for six other films. Orson Welles is said to have seen it more than forty times before shooting Citizen Kane.
Who it is for
A film of about one hour thirty-six minutes, in black and white; a French box set from 2009 includes a dubbed track.
Prizes and reception
Two Oscars, for Thomas Mitchell and for the music, out of seven nominations, and added in 1995 to the National Film Registry.
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