The History of John Ford: Stagecoach (1939)

When Orson Welles was asked what movies he studied before embarking on directing Citizen Kane he replied, "I studied the Old Masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." 

Running parallel with our series about Akira Kurosawa ("Walking Kurosawa's Road"), we're running a series of pieces about the closest thing America has to Kurosawa in artistry—director John Ford. Ford rarely made films set in the present day, but (usually) made them about the past...and about America's past, specifically (when he wasn't fulfilling a passion for his Irish roots). 

 In "The History of John Ford" we'll be gazing fondly at the work of this American Master, who started in the Silent Era, learning his craft, refining his director's eye, and continuing to work deep into the 1960's (and his 70's) to produce the greatest body of work of any American "picture-maker," America's storied film-maker, the irascible, painterly, domineering, sentimental puzzle that was John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.


Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) This classic western was hailed as the first "adult western" when it premiered and changed many folks' minds about the viability of the dusty genre to tell stories beyond those of bank-robbers and Indians and greedy rustlers and romancing school-ma'rms. Oh, and singing cowboys. It went beyond childhood fantasies and explored something beyond the white hat/black hat simplicity of early "oaters" to look at things like hypocrisy and duplicity.

Ford tells the story (based on a script by Dudley Nichols from a story, "Stage to Lordsburgh" by Ernest Haycox ) of a motley group of passengers thrust together on an event-filled stagecoach ride to Lordsburgh. That's the bones of it. But, it's not so much the location work, the horses, or the gun-play as it is the interaction between a coach of people on the outskirts of civilization—or what passes for "civilization" out there on the prairie. 

The stagecoach is being driven by Buck (Andy Devine) with Marshall Curley Wilcox (George Bancroft) riding shotgun; the Marshall is taking that position because there's news that "The Ringo Kid" has broken out of prison, vowing revenge on the Plummer brothers for the murder of his father and brother. The Plummers are in Lordsburgh, so chances are "Ringo" is headed there, as well, giving the Marshall a chance to catch him before any one else is killed.

But, there's another reason: Geronimo is on the warpath, and a stagecoach is just the sort of thing he and his Apache band will be looking for. Not that the passengers loading in the town of Tonto in the Arizona Territory are all that valuable: there's Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), a young Army wife with a secret on the last leg of a journey to re-unite with her husband; the gambler Hatfield (John Carradine), who takes pity on the woman for her long journey and chooses to accompany her; there's Sam Peacock (Donald Meek), a liquor salesman. The city's "Law and Order League" are kicking out two of the passengers: Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell), the town doctor and town drunk, and "a lady of pleasure," Dallas (Claire Trevor). A last minute addition is the town banker, Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill), who blusters and bullies his way onto the stage, making for crowded conditions.

They don't make much head-way until they run into another orphan—"Ringo" (John Wayne), yep, just as the Marshall thought, on his way to Lordsburgh with death on his mind, but a horse that's gone lame, and so he hails down the stage with a rifle-cock, dust-blown and sweating in one of the grandest introductions that Ford ever allowed one of his actors.* "Ringo" does intend to confront the Plummers, but he's glad to see the Marshall and Buck, anyway, as they're old friends. And, heck, sure, he did a jail-break, but there's no reason to get ornery about it, as the Marshall's just doing his job and he sure could use that coach-ride.

It might've been healthier to catch the next one. It's crowded on that stagecoach and Ringo is relegated to the floor, caught in the middle between bickering, loathing, and often drunken passengers. Ringo stays friendly and guileless. So much so that he treats Dallas with the same respect that he does Mrs. Mallory—at the first stop at Dry Fork, when everyone else sits for a lunch-break, he offers her a chair (next to him, in fact), the haughtier passengers move away from their company. At Dry Fork, their cavalry escort moves on to Apache Wells—there's been an incident and Mallory's husband has gone off with them—but, the coach passengers vote to move on despite the lack of troops watching over them.

They make it to Apache Wells, but their stay there will be unexpectedly long: first, Mrs. Mallory is informed that her husband has been injured in a skirmish with Apaches nearby, which leads to a medical emergency that forces them to stay the night, forces Doc Boone to sober up, and allows some folks' opinion of Dallas to change. 

But not Ringo. Her actions only cements his opinion of her, and before the next day dawns, he proposes to her, which just puts her in a state of confusion. She thinks he's naive and doesn't know about her, but he doesn't care. Then, there's the little matter of his heading for Lordburgh—he's not going to let go of his blood-feud, and for Dallas, that's a prospect that can only lead to a very short marriage and widow's weeds.

Dallas and Ringo concoct a desperate plan for his escape—she grabs a rifle, he grabs a horse and he's off before Wilcox can notice he's gone. But, once he does, it doesn't take him long to find him. He's stopped, looking off at the horizon. The Apaches are sending war-signals, and no matter what delicate condition the passengers are in, they're heading for Lordsburgh, pronto.

There begins a sequence for which Ford became famous—a desperate chase across the desert with no cover in sight, with everyone riding at top-gallop, break-neck. This one is augmented and devised by the work of legendary stuntman/arranger Yakima Canutt (who was recommended for the job by Wayne). To this day, it's an amazing show of guts and bravery. The most amazing of which are two shots that are unbroken—where Canutt plays an Apache warrior who leaps from his horse to the lead-horse of the stagecoach, is then "shot" by Ringo and falls back between the horses and between the wheels of the wagon. The other he doubles for Ringo, as he leaps from horse-back to horse-back trying to retrieve the reigns of the lead horses dropped by Buck when he's shot during the fire-fight.

Canutt's work was so respected by Ford that the stunt-man was put on the payroll of every subsequent Ford film (unless he was working on another picture), whether his services were needed or not.

Stagecoach was made in that Golden Year of 1939, probably the apex of Hollywood output as far as high-end quality. It has aged very well, balancing out things that seem merely quaint today (but were radical in its era) with things that still boggles the mind and eye. One of those things is the cinematography of Bert Glennon, a workmanlike photographer who Ford would rely during his RKO days before setting up stables at 20th Century Fox. Ford would call on him again for his glorious Wagonmaster.

It's been remade (twice, both wildly inferior to the original), made John Wayne a star, won Thomas Mitchell his Oscar, and changed the Western genre from kiddie fare to acceptable adult material. It also earned Ford another of his innumerable "Best Director" nominations at the Academy Awards.

And Orson Welles watched it forty times before making Citizen Kane.

John Wayne walking in 1939, the way he'd walk the rest of his Western career.

* It's a "truck-in" shot, a difficult maneuver as you have to maintain focus for the entire distance. They didn't, as one can see in Stagecoach, even though it has a great effect. But, they would when Ford did the same trick on Wayne in The Searchers. Why he did it for Wayne here is one of those John Ford mysteries. Wayne had worked in the background of a lot of Ford films, and the director was definitely grooming him to become an actor—even a star. But, director Raoul Walsh got him first, changing Marion Morrison's name to "John Wayne" and starring him in his film The Big Trail, a massive wide-screen (65 mm and stereo sound) wagon-train epic, which is a great movie, but it failed to make back its substantial costs at the box-office. Wayne was left to languish, making B and C-grade Westerns at Monogram and Mascot Studios, until Ford wore off his "snit" about Wayne's seeming "betrayal" and cast him in Stagecoach. This elaborate intro shot may have been Ford's penance.

The History of John Ford: How the West Was Won: The Civil War

When Orson Welles was asked what movies he studied before embarking on directing Citizen Kane he replied, "I studied the Old Masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." 

Running parallel with our series about Akira Kurosawa ("Walking Kurosawa's Road"), we're running a series of pieces about the closest thing America has to Kurosawa in artistry—director John Ford. Ford rarely made films set in the present day, but (usually) made them about the past...and about America's past, specifically (when he wasn't fulfilling a passion for his Irish roots). 

In "The History of John Ford" we'll be gazing fondly at the work of this American Master, who started in the Silent Era, learning his craft, refining his director's eye, and continuing to work deep into the 1960's (and his 70's) to produce the greatest body of work of any American "picture-maker," America's storied film-maker, the irascible, painterly, domineering, sentimental puzzle that was John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

How the West was Won (George Marshall, Henry Hathaway, John Ford, 1962) How the West was Won was the top-grossing film at the box-office of 1962; based on a series of Life Magazine articles it was a multi-generational story of the expansion West covering the years between 1839 and 1889. It was the last Cinerama film shot in its original, costly three-camera process. 

The film had three directors: George Marshall (who directed "The Railroad"), Henry Hathaway who directed "The River," "The Plains," and "The Outlaws") and John Ford, who, at the age of 68, directed one section, "The Civil War," which encompassed the story of young Zeb Rawlings (George Peppard), who, after years of tending to the Rawlings farm, follows his father Linus (James Stewart) who has joined the Union Army to fight in the Civil War. The section reaches its dramatic high-point at the bloody battle of Shiloh, a battle that kills Linus, a fact unbeknownst to his son, who in the same area, manages to prevent the assassination of General Ulysses S. Grant (Harry Morgan) by a Confederate soldier (Russ Tamblyn). 

Despite his age, Ford's section is the one that manages to utilize the wide format the best, hiding the "joins" of the three camera shots in posts, trees, and general architecture of the compositions, where the three projected images would meet—and frequently reveal the flaws in the process. Also, his images have the most interesting look when projected on the intended curved screen for the format, creating a deep three-dimensional sense of field while "tilting" the intended image to give it its most panoramic flatness. Subsequent "straightening" of the image (as in the contained screen-shots) give the image a bowed quality with the images closest to the edge of the frame a faraway sense that is not there in the image projected on a curved screen.

Pretty impressive for an old guy. But just as Howard Hawks had managed to make an impressive use of Cinemascope in Land of the Pharoahs, the veteran director's research into the format provided the best example of how to utilize the unique photographic aspect ratio (2.65:1) to the best extent...and width...of the directors (including sections by the uncredited Richard Thorpe) creating the film.

Despite the results, Ford hated the process. For one, he couldn't watch the filming as he was used to—sitting beside the camera (no doubt chewing on his handkerchief) while it was rolling. "Takes" were sometimes ruined by Ford inadvertently entering the frame, so it was arranged for Ford to sit above the camera and behind it, so that he could see exactly what was going on.

The other thing he hated about it was that the image included so much space that the crew had to be limited to where they could stand and (most annoyingly) that a set had to be completely "dressed" and prepped, lest some discrepancy be caught by one of the three cameras taking in the scene. There was more of a chance for a mistake to happen with so much image being recorded at the same time.

But, the images are impressive. Ford always had a painter's eye for composition and despite having to shift to a mural-canvas (let alone a curved mural canvas), he still manages to keep the focus on the mid-range of the shot and using the rest of the frame to express the isolation of the farm by including its far horizon in the frame, as well.

At this point, in looking at these images, displayed flat in 2 dimensions, it's a good idea to imagine them with the edges curving towards you to create the seemingly three-dimensional image that Ford is trying to communicate using the Cinerama format. In that presentation, the figure on the left of Carroll Baker (center-screen) would actually be closer than what the flat image indicates, while Peppard's figure to her right is farther away—just as he's contemplating leaving the farm and going to war.

When Baker's mother character learns of his plans, she retreats to the house, in shadow, leaving the young Zeb standing in the stark sunlight in the center of the frame torn between his responsibilities at home—represented on the right—and his plans to go to war—represented by the image of wilderness on the left, the same stand of trees through which Corporal Peterson (Andy Devine)—"There ain't much glory trompin' behind a plow"—drove his wagon to arrive at the Rawlings farm.

The Rawlings graveyard, to which Baker's character retreats to mourn her son's leaving—when he returns, her grave will be there, as well. But, for now, she can only weep outside its crude timber fence.

The shot below is one that haunted me when I saw it at the age of seven. the field hospital at the Shiloh battlefield, where the wounded are treated—the doctor systematically cleans the operating table in the most efficient way he can given the circumstances—he takes a bucket of water to splash the blood off the table, as the wounded are brought in so regularly, there's no time to do anything more. That image haunted me and haunts me still. It's Ford's refutation of the glory of war.

It is underpinned by the next soldier brought in—it is Linus Rawlings, Zeb's father, already dead and not even worth a cursory glance by the sawbones on duty. The character we've already seen in the first part of the movie is unceremoniously pulled off the table, not worth the time or the trouble.

Below is the wide shot of Peppard and Tamblyn, by a stream that runs red with the blood of the fallen from the battle that has tainted it, not offering comfort but horror. Ford's perspective slightly straightens out the gulley on the curved screen. The two are about to have a rendezvous with destiny.

Moving closer to the camp, they see William Tecumseh Sherman (John Wayne) and Ulysses S. Grant (Morgan), exhausted from the bloody battle they have overseen for the Union side. Grant is having his doubts and Sherman will not hold with it, upbraiding Grant for a weakness of will and for listening to his naysayers.

It's a studio shot, something Ford has used before in his films, especially for night-scenes, but much expanded in scope from previous examples. Wayne's role is basically a cameo, but the larger physical presence of Wayne dwarfs Morgan's Grant in comparison, as he is physically (and emotionally) diminished by the perspective.

A staple of Ford westerns is a literal fording of a body of water by man and animals. Ford's short "Civil War" segment includes one.

Ford bookends the battle of Shiloh with a wide-wide shot of cannon extending across the screen, firing in a line from left to right. It's impressive enough to repeat.

Ford's segment is a small part of the almost three hour roadshow attraction, but it still manages to stand out from the rest for its hard-edged view of war, and its concentration on family—the entire film does, after all, center on one family's story with the challenge of the West as a back-drop. But, Ford's film is intimate, concentrated, less centered on spectacle or "the money shot" and merely using the bizarre Cinerama format in its most effective story-telling capacity.

Did I mention he was 68 at the time?

He had started his career in the age of silent pictures.