Stagecoach (1939)

What a year 1939 was for the movies! Not only did we get both David O. Selznick's Gone With The Wind and Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (which need no introduction), but also several other films that, despite not being as instantly recognizable, have nevertheless left their mark in cinema history -- well, at least for me. William Dieterle's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, for instance, headed by a bravura performance by Charles Laughton, remains to this day my favorite adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel. The great Bette Davis managed to give two spectacular performances that year, one for which she was awarded a nod as Best Actress (her Judith Traherne in Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory), and other that, for me, remains one of the best in her career: the titular Virgin Queen in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex by Michael Curtiz -- her farewell scene with her beloved Essex, played by the eternal Robin Hood Errol Flynn, rarely fails to bring tears to my eyes. Also released that year was Frank Capra's excellent (and always relevant) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a film that would come to define its star James Stewart's persona for years to come, as well as become a symbol (that is still referred to to this day) of the power a righteous individual can have over corrupt, faceless institutions. Moreover, Jean Renoir's La Règle du Jeu, also a Great Movie, would, too, be released in 1939, together with William Wyler's Wuthering Heights (by far the adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel I like the most) and Lewis Milestone's Of Mice and Men (which, in spite of the restraints imposed by the infamous Hays code, managed to beautifully capture  the strength of John Steinbeck's prose). Ernst Lubitsch's slyly funny Ninotchka, released that October, is also a movie I regularly watch, thinking every time what a pity it was that Greta Garbo didn't act in more comedies. I could go on, but, instead, I would like to focus on yet another important movie from 1939, a movie credited with alone revitalizing the Western genre: John Ford's Stagecoach.

Drunkard Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell) and saloon girl Dallas (Claire Trevor), driven out of the town of Tonto by its self-proclaimed Law and Order League, are coerced into boarding a stagecoach heading to the city of Lordsburg, in a neighboring territory. They are joined by meek whiskey salesman Samuel Peacock (aptly named Donald Meek); Mrs. Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), on her way to meet her cavalry office husband; low-life poker player Hatfield (John Carradine), who volunteered to protect Mrs. Mallory during the trip; and banker Mr. Gatewood (Berton Churchill), running away from town after having embezzled a fortune from his bank. Upon being told by the stagecoach driver (played by high-pitched, raspy voiced Andy Devine) that notorious criminal Luke Plummer (Tom Tyler) was last seen by him in Lordsburg, Marshal Wilcox (George Bancroft) volunteers for the job of protecting the coach during the journey ahead, for he was certain that escaped convict Ringo Kid (John Wayne), whose father and brother had been killed by Plummer, would definitely be on his way to that town seek vengeance. As the coach is about to depart, its passengers are warned that Geronimo and his Apaches are attacking everyone crossing the valley, and that they must reconsider whether to proceed -- a danger, they assert, they are prepared to face. A few hours after having left town, they indeed come across Ringo, who is then promptly arrested by the Marshall and made board the stagecoach with the other passengers. Confined in that small space for days while crossing the desolated Monument Valley, social differences are progressively ignored as adversities pile up, with the outcasts Dallas and Ringo ending up falling in love with each other. After an arduous and eventful trip, they are attacked by Geronimo and his men while nearing their destination, being saved at the last minute by the cavalry, which then escort them to Lordsburg. There, Ringo obtains permission from the Marshall to face Plummer, vowing to go back to jail afterwards. A rapid gunfight ensues, ending up with the death of Luke Plummer and his brothers. Ringo, having finally avenged his family, is then ready to return to jail, as he had promised. Dallas, wanting to be with him for as long as possible, chooses to accompany him as far as the prison. As they say good-bye to each other on the coach that would take Ringo away, the Marshall, moved by the scene and taking into consideration Ringo's valiant help during their trip, scares the horses away. Ringo and Dallas, then, happily ride into the sunset, to live their lives in peace and quiet in his ranch in Mexico.

The stagecoach making its way through Monument Valley

Direct consequence of the march West encouraged after the end of the American Civil War, the Indian Wars were still ravaging the westernmost part of the US by the time the movies came to the New World. With the press capitalizing on the conflicts, and entertainers like Buffalo Bill and his troupe romanticizing them to the masses, it is no wonder that interest on the "wild West" was at an all time high during the formative years of the film industry, with vignettes like Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene by pioneer James H. White already being played in kinetoscopes throughout that country in as early as 1899.

Owing to its early prolificacy, conventions for the genre were quickly established. With his seminal The Great Train Robbery (1903), Edwin S. Porter laid down not only what would become the basic Western narrative, but the idea of narrative itself with his then-revolutionary editing techniques; actors William S. Hart, Tom Mix and Harry Carey would create the template for the cowboy hero with movies like The Return of Draw Egan (1916), The Telltale Knife (1914), and the Cheyenne Harry series (which started in 1916), respectively; John Ford himself would lay the foundations for the typical Western duel with his Straight Shooting (1917); Jesse L. Lasky would set the standard for Western blockbusters with his production of James Cruze's The Covered Wagon (1923), which started a new succession of box office hits in the genre. It seemed like the Western, much like Comedy and Drama, was one of the great, durable pillars of cinema.

Nevertheless, tides started to change for the Western film genre by the end of the 1920s. The birth of the talkies meant unemployment for most of its stars, who were mostly former real cowboys, and, thus, highly skilled in thrilling stunts but not quite versed in delivering dialog. The few ones that remained employed were then struct by a progressive lack of interest in the genre, natural consequence of the Indian Wars having come to an end in 1924. Accordingly, A-list Westerns started to progressively flop at the box office (most notoriously Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail - 1930 -, whose leading man was a certain Marion "John Wayne" Morrison). The Best Picture Oscar win by Wesley Ruggles' Cimarron in 1931 notwithstanding, it did not take long for Westerns to devolve into tongue-in-cheek movie serials and second-rate horse operas.

Ringo Kid (John Wayne)'s introductory shot

By the late 1930s, however, Hollywood took notice of the void in the market created by the lack of quality Westerns being released. A renaissance for the genre started then to brew inside its big movie studios. In trying their best to make their movies stand out, studio executives mostly focused on the reputation of their stars, teaming up their most respected directors with their most famous performers. Yet, in also trying to minimize risk, shooting was to be done either inside the safety of the studio's sound stages or in easy-to-access filming locations, and scripts would not deviate too much from the norm established by the classic silent Westerns.

In comes industry veteran John Ford, a great admirer of the Western mythology, who was also eager to oblige, specially taking into account he had been away from the genre since his Three Bad Men (1926). During the pre-production of what would become Stagecoach, Ford became fascinated by an isolated region of the Colorado Plateau called Monument Valley, believing it to be a perfect match for his mythic vision of the Old West and therefore the ideal set for his new Western. The fact that the valley was completely void of infrastructure also enthralled him, since it meant working in isolation, far away from meddling studio executives. Needless to say, investors were not happy.

Ford was also adamant in having as his leading actor the then mostly-unknown John Wayne, whose most notable feat so far was having starred in Raoul Walsh’s 1930 debacle. He was good friends with Wayne, whom he had introduced to the industry some years back, and strongly believed Wayne's yet untapped potential for stardom could finally be unleashed by Stagecoach's Ringo Kid. Alas, by going against the tide in those uncertain days, it should come to no surprise then that all major studios refused Ford's movie pitch.

At last, against all odds, a deal was struck with independent producer Walter Wanger, with Ford conceding that the more famous Claire Trevor would receive top billing instead of Wayne (which was not that much of a compromise if you think about it). Thus,  in 1939, Stagecoach was released, establishing John Wayne as a household name and changing the Western genre forever.

Ringo Kid (John Wayne) gazing at
Dallas (Claire Trevor) as she passes by

It is important to stress that Stagecoach was not the only big budget Western released in 1939, nor was it the most commercially successful one (actually, it was not even the only Western by Ford that year). Yet, it quickly became the model against which other A-list productions in the genre would be measured for the simple reason that it dared to be different. Instead of, like its contemporary Westerns, rehashing the same old manicheistic clichés that had doomed the genre not so long ago, Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols (recipient of the Best Screesplay Oscar for Ford's The Informer - 1935) chose to subvert them: their cowboy hero, on top of having no horse, is an escaped criminal put under restraints during his introductory shot; archetypes like the gambler, the drunk and the prostitute, which, in typical Westerns, would not be worthy of empathy, are revealed here to be noble at heart; the classical Western ending of the lone hero riding into the sunset for a life of adventure in the wild is here replaced by Ringo and Dallas "driving off into a shimmering dawn, heeding not the call of the wild, but heading instead for a life of domestic bliss". As beautifully summarized by  Michael Coyne:

Stagecoach romanticized the fictitious outlaw hero; the nation-building epic [Westerns of 1939-1941] embraced the Establishment hero. While Stagecoach, through its heroic outcasts, applauded the pioneer spirit from the bottom up, the epics celebrated the pioneer achievement from the top down [...]. Stagecoach [...] put no trust in plutocrats, satirizing their pompous rhetoric; the epics lionized such figures and solemnized their rhetoric. Stagecoach stressed the personal over the historic, foregrounding human drama over national progress. Above all, Stagecoach was implicitly critical of American society whereas the epics were explicitly triumphalist.    

Ringo and Dallas walking though the pleasure district of
Lordsburg, where she expected to find work and shelter
after having been expelled from Tonto

Ford manages to organically weave social critic into his narrative by confining his characters in a succession of small enclosures, with no alternative then but to interact with each other. As a result, Stagecoach transcends the boundaries long established by its genre, to become a character study based mostly on subtext, passive-aggressiveness and cold stares, usually with Claire Trevor's Dallas being at the receiving end of the offence.

Trevor offered here a very nuanced performance that relies greatly in her beautifully expressive eyes. They cower in shame at being stared at by the respectable Ms. Mallory, they twinkle with joy as she holds the baby of the same Ms. Mallory she herself helped bring to the world, they long for hope as she talks about her feelings for Ringo with Doc Boone... About halfway though Stagecoach, you want Ringo to be alright because you want her to have a chance at happiness, a fact blatantly and ingeniously exploited by Ford in the movie's third act: watching Ringo and Dallas walking down the pleasure district of Lordsburg, where Dallas originally expected to find work and shelter after having being expelled from Tonto, her tearful eyes glittering in the darkness of the night, was an extremely effective way of generating anticipation for Ringo's final confrontation with the Plummers, to happen shortly after. Unfortunately, competition was fierce in 1939, and, as a result, she did not receive a Best Actress nod. What a shame!

The always delightful Thomas Mitchell, nevertheless, was awarded the Oscar for his performance as Doc Boone (and rightfully so -- least of all, for the hand gesture I like to think he made at the pious ladies escorting him out of town).

One character I also quite liked was cartoony banker Mr. Gatewood (Berton Churchill), barking about how "government must not interfere with businesses" while embezzling a fortune from his own. He was the only coach passenger whose perception of the world was not altered by the trip, certainly a jab at the Wall Street moguls responsible for the Great Depression, which still plagued a good deal of the population at the time. Mr. Gatewood might as well have played a much bigger role in the story than it meets the eye: at the beginning of the movie, soon after he boarded the stagecoach, Doc Boone nonchalantly remarks that it was the banker's wife, the head of Tonto's Law and Order League, that was the "chairman of [his and Dallas's] farewell committee", as the camera suggestively shifts to a close-up of Dallas and then to a medium shot of her and the banker glancing at one another. A word to the wise, as they say.

A fearless stunt by Yakima Canutt

More than the subtle acting and the poignant social critique, however, I imagine that it was the thrilling chase sequence in Stagecoach that must have kept audiences coming for more. A wide angle shot of the minuscule coach riding through the towering stone pillars of Monument Valley quickly shifts to Geronimo and his Apaches overviewing the scene, ready to charge (look closely for Geronimo, though -- I missed him on my first viewing of the film, and though his subplot had been forgotten): the stage is set, thus, for stuntman Yakima Canutt to shine.

A former cowboy turned silent movie hero, an injury in his vocal chords prevented his career as a talkie star, so he kept on contributing to cinema with what he did best: daring stunts. Allegedly, Ford was so pleased with the way Canutt solved the problem of safely shooting the coach's river crossing that he gave him carte blanche in creating all the stunts for Stagecoach, and what a spectacle Canutt prepared!

It is him as the Indian who, after having failed to stop the coach by cutting at the reigns, is shot, falls to the ground and is then run over by the horses pulling it; it is him as Ringo, jumping from horse to horse trying to catch the fallen reigns; it is him as the dozens of Indians falling from their mounts at full speed. Canutt didn’t just perform the stunts, "he dreamed them up, figured out how to film them, and invented the rigging and techniques that made them possible". He would go on to become the most respected stuntman in the industry, being awarded, in 1966, an honorary Oscar for his “achievements as a stunt man and for developing safety devices to protect stunt men everywhere”.

Summarizing it:

Liked	Didn't like
Thomas Mitchell's Doc Boone is delightful to watch	The movie's comic relief, Andy Devine's Buck, can get on your nerves
Claire Trevor's heartbreaking performance as Dallas	We don't spend enough time with Geronimo to recognize him in the quick shot preceding the chase sequence
Yakima Canutt's daring stunts

Arguably Yakima Canutt's most replicated stunt:

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Great Movie review by Roger Ebert here.

If you liked this movie, then make sure to watch Ford's The Searchers (1956).

Some people have e-mailed me that my long paragraphs are hard to read when in mobile mode, so I'll try and break then up more often.

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