119. Stagecoach (1939)

Directed by John Ford

Synopsis

A little stagecoach filled with a variety of people has to make its way through Apache infested territory.

Review

This is the first modern western on the list, the only other one before this was the Great Train Robbery back in the 1903. Since then pretty much all westerns had been B-Movies for a young and non-discerning audience. John Ford shows up to change that forever and also bring John Wayne to stardom.

I was never a big Wayne fan more for his personal beliefs than for his acting, because I must admit I haven't watched many Wayne films - I was always partial to the Italian school of westerns myself. This said I am a huge fan of Westerns, particularly Spaghetti Westerns but also American westerns from the late 50's and 60's, not to mention Deadwood which is my favourite TV series. John Ford is, however the daddy of all these films and with Stagecoach he makes Westerns respectable.

The film is actually pretty great, it - like most great films - focuses mainly on character development in the first hour fo the film so you can actually care about the action happening in the last half hour. Each passenger of the stagecoach has his or her own extremely well developed personality, back story and intentions and this makes the interactions all the more interesting. This can only be brought together with great actors of course, and this film certainly doesn't lack that. Actually Wayne pales in comparison to other people, with special mention to the Doc which deservedly got an Oscar for best supporting actor. Although there is only really one action scene it's an amazing one and well worth the price of admission. It is a very watchable, very fun film which is also a pivotal film in cinema history, can't ask for much more than that. Get it at Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:


Stagecoach has been lauded as one of the most influential films ever made. Orson Welles argued that it was a perfect textbook of film making and claimed to have watched it more than 40 times during the making of Citizen Kane (1941). Akira Kurosawa noted that Stagecoach was one of his favorite films and influential in his making of Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai) (1954).

Trailer: