Stagecoach

Screening on Film

Directed by John Ford.
With John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Carradine.
US, 1939, 35mm, black & white, 96 min.

Ever-fresh story (adapted from De Maupassant) about a disparate group of strangers traveling through Apache territory in a stagecoach. The Apaches are, unfortunately, the howling, murderous Other, but the people within the stagecoach, and the drivers too, are all three-dimensional and forever memorable, a primary lesson in Ford’s uncanny ability at characterization. This movie is the so-called first "adult western," and it’s the one that made John Wayne famous in a poignant role as a lad with a sterling heart on the run from the law. (Notice how the ending prefigures Casablanca.)