The Quiet Man (1952)

The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952) "Trooper" Sean Thornton (John Wayne), ex-prize-fighter, comes back to the land of his birth, Innisfree, to reclaim his father's property in Ireland. Considered an outsider and a "Yank" he makes his peace with the locals—a pint is usually good enough to prove one's charity—and settles down for a simpler life than the one he knew.

 

And maybe forget.

 

There's just one hitch—it's "Red" Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen)—his neighbor on one side of his property is not interested in "easements." He has been looking balefully at that property for years, hoping to make it his own in pursuit of marriage with the widow Sarah Tillane (Mildred Natwick), who will have nothing to do with the brute. In spite, she sells the property to the green-horn Thornton and that is settled. Settlement is just what Thornton intends. But, it isn't easy, and he finds he has to go a few rounds with various opponents on their home turf. In Innisfree, it's war until there's peace.

It doesn't help that he's hit by "the lightning bolt" when he catches sight of a ginger sheep-tender and becomes instantly smitten. As the Luck of the Irish would have it, she's Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara), the sister of the one man in the emerald glow of Innisfree who despises him. Mary Kate makes him feel like he's gone 10 rounds in the ring without a decision, and their besottedness is mutual, but for Kate there are issues before romance that Thornton thinks are just damn archaic, having come from The New World. 

But...when in Rome (with Roman Catholics)... He's fine with the whole town knowing about it and he's reluctantly okay with the rituals—as Mary Kate prevaricates: "Well, we just started a-courtin', and next month, we, we start the walkin' out, and the month after that there'll be the threshin' parties, and the month after that..."—of the very chaste chaperoned traditions in the country ("No patty-fingers, if you please!" warns squire Michaleen Oge Flynn—Barry Fitzgerald—"The proprieties at all times!"), even if the two adults are a bit long in the tooth to be treated as children, they can't help rebelling by jumping the buggy and setting off on their own, unsupervised. All well and good; they're two healthy adults with a rebellious streak that seems compatible—to which the ever-watchful community tacitly agrees. There's just that Danaher matter.

And that other Danaher matter: Mary Kate will not jump into marriage with Thornton without her dowry, which is being withheld by her lout of a brother. Now Squire Danaher objected to the marriage from the get-go, but some village conniving put the canard out there, that the widow Tillane would be more agreeable to marrying him if Mary Kate were out of the house. He consented to the marriage, and then was refused by the widow. In spite, he has decided to withhold Mary Kate's dowry and she won't get married without it.

And that's the last straw for Thornton, setting him down for the count. He came to Ireland to settle down—the consequences of a death at his hand in the ring—and has sworn to fight no more forever and leave the States and his past behind. But, for all the blarney and the twee village-life that he'd been expecting, all he gets is conflict. And, now, must fight again—gloves off this time, but the same Marquis of Queensbury rules—to fight for the woman he loves and against the old-school precepts and covenants that would keep them apart. To him, they're the same as the sheep-droppings that litter the countryside. And he's not the kind to count to 10.

Ford had wanted to make this movie for years—being romantically sentimental about the land of his parents (he was born in the state of Maine)—and made one of those "devil's bargain" deals with Republic Pictures—who didn't think the movie would be profitable and fought like Beelzebub to shoot it in black-and-white to cut costs—and put down some collateral to make a couple of Westerns beforehand in order to secure a promise to make this odd romantic comedy, which seemed way out of the captain's chair for the veteran director.

But, Ford's passion for Ireland comes through in every frame (even the ones shot in the studio), and it allowed him to cast some fine Irish actors (he'd do more with the community in later years) as well as his traditional stock company—his brother Francis, Ward Bond, Arthur Shields, McLaglen—and his two trusted key players, Wayne and O'Hara, to make a movie that was a little out of lock-step with what was "big" in the States (isn't defying lock-step what the movie is about?). He gets some of the best career-performances out of his cast—Wayne is particularly remarkable and nuanced—with moments that are very broad and some that are just economically and full-throttled perfect—think of Fitzgerald's line: "Impetuous! Homeric!"

That's the other thing about this movie. Although it's about adults acting like children, it also—for want of a better word—damned sexy. Wayne and O'Hara were friends—life-long pals, in fact, but never romantically interested in each other—but, their on-screen chemistry, nurtured by Ford in previous appearances together, is electric. Sparks fly between the two, because both were tough acts, head-strong and opinionated, challenging and supporting each other on-stage and off (they were quite different politically), but the two of them together made the most of every scene. They're just made for each other, at least on-screen. There are better actors, of course, but chemistry is magic, and has something more to do than technique and style.

It's Ford's love-letter to Ireland (of course, he had to shoot it in Technicolor!), acknowledging the "ditriments" along with the glories of his father's land. He'd make more movies in Ireland, (a couple quite remarkable) but nothing has the off-kilter swagger that Ford at full steam could bring. And some of the images are just beautiful...museum-quality...and you get the full effect of why Ford referred to himself as "a picture-maker." That the frame is also bursting with drama, humor and corn, means that he had more than an artist's eye. He had the blarney down cold, and the magician's economy to both wow and startle.

He wanted Ireland to be proud of him. How could they not be?

The "Quiet Man" statue located in Cong, County Mayo...where parts were filmed.

 

Directed By John Ford

One of the delightful things about Steven Spielberg's film The Fabelmans is the late inclusion of maverick director David Lynch portraying maverick director John Ford in the recreation of the young Spielberg's meeting with him. Lynch "got" it exactly right—the irascibility, the bluntness, the crotchedly pugnaciousnes,...and the simplicity of the lesson being taught. He tells Spielberg something he knows, but not everything he knows. Just a tid-bit, that has served Spielberg well ever since (his film War Horse is a shining example of the lesson that Ford taught him that day). 

That's just a preamble for this expanded documentary that Peter Bogdanovich revised years after his death—the original was made in 1971 while Ford was still alive. One of these days (how often I say that!) I'll get back on track with the "History of John Ford" series I was doing. It's not complete yet, but the many John Ford entries I've run across while compiling an Index for this site tells me there's still a lot of work to do. 

 

For one thing, I can't believe I've never brought this over from my old movie blog. But, here it is:

 

Directed by John Ford (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971, 2006) Bogdanovich's essential primer is a "viewer's digest" of some big things that that made John Ford such a powerful director not only in individual films, but also across a career of experience. Generous clips from throughout his life's work illustrate points, punctuated by talking head clips from the '71 version including Ford himself (who is not very helpful, to say the least—by saying the least*—and is deliberately dismissive of doing the whole "critical analysis" thing, much like a comedian hates to explain a joke, or a magician a trick), as well as actors he worked with like John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and James Stewart. 

 

The 2006 update folds in Harry Carey, Jr., Maureen O'Hara, and analysis from Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Walter Hill, and Steven Spielberg, as well as Bogdanovich (you couldn't keep him out of one of his own documentaries, even if it's about another subject).

The update has everything from the original re-jiggered to add more points, but there's more of a "legacy" feel to the thing, now, as the casts of regulars Ford depended on have dwindled—Ford was still alive during the first version—and so the next generation who grew up and learned their craft sitting in the theater watching Ford's images talk about "what John Ford means to me." Also, as the man is gone now, there's a bit more psychological analysis and more delving into the man's irascible personality, already on full display in his interview.

But there is one troubling aspect to this "new" version, something that stuck in my craw when I saw it (and no doubt would result in Ford caning Bogdanovich if he got wind of it). There is a brief (very brief) examination of Mary of Scotland, Ford's only film directing Katherine Hepburn, and the subject of much speculation over what their relationship was. A sound clip is played of Hepburn's visit to Ford days before his death. The tape was allowed to run continuously, and their parting words to each other are played, words that they had no way of knowing were being recorded, and words that might not have been said if known they'd been overheard (Ford specifically asks her "Are they gone?"). It's nothing scandalous or huge. Ford merely says "I love you," and Hepburn says "it's mutual." But it feels like a violation of the departed by the parties that recorded it and who have re-presented it. And far too much is made of it (Really?  It was the inspiration for the names of O'Hara's and Wayne's characters in The Quiet Man?) in a gossipy, speculative fashion.

These were, after all, words from two people who must have known they'd never see each other again, and it's nice and it's lovely. But it's beneath the film, beneath Bogdanovich, and undercuts whatever scholarly impact the film might otherwise enjoy to make anything more of than the sweet parting gesture it is. The worst part is...there's no one to rebut, no one to protest, no one to defend...or even better yet, to correct the speculation. Even Ford's maxim of "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend" doesn't cover this.

That aside (and it's my quibble, really), it's an invaluable first toe-dip into the films of Ford, and enriches the experience and appreciation of every film of his seen afterwards. One thing Bogdanovich did right (besides getting Turner Classic Movies to bank-roll it, so more people would see it, as the various clips from many studio sources would be very expensive) is he kept the original's essential narration by Orson Welles, Ford fan and student. The voices and faces and memories out of the past have as much weight and bearing as the films do, reverberating throughout history and time, feeling immortal and universal.

*

Blood Alley

Blood Alley (William Wellman, 1955) This production of John Wayne's independent production company, Batjac Productions, Blood Alley must have felt snake-bit from the word "go." Director William Wellman had done a couple of films for Wayne, and Robert Mitchum had starred in the previous Batjac show directed by Wellman, Track of the Cat, and started filming on this film.

 

But, for whatever reason—Wellman thought it was weed, Bacall thought it was booze—Mitchum and the director did not get along on this one, and after an altercation in which Mitchum attacked one of the crew, Wellman contacted Wayne and delivered an ultimatum: "Either he goes or I go."

 

"Wild Bill" stayed. Mitchum went. 

 

But, the film needed a star to play opposite the already-cast Lauren Bacall. Gregory Peck didn't like the script. Humphrey Bogart wanted too much money. So, with a film in production and money on the line, Wayne interrupted his honeymoon to go on location to save the investment on the movie. Not that he had to go very far; this story about the evacuation of a village population out of Communist China was being filmed just outside of San Rafael in San Francisco Bay.

You know it's a different kind of "Duke" movie when the opening scene has Wayne (as Capt. Tom Wilder) talking to himself. John Wayne characters do not talk to themselves. There may be monologues, and he'll even do a scene talking over a grave with credibility. But, any introspection in Wayne's characters do so quietly, without a lot of fuss. So, it's a bit of a hurdle to jump when Wayne's Wilder starts out as a prisoner in a Chinese cell babbling to an imaginary "lady-in-waiting" he calls "Baby." Lord knows how long he's been in that prison—and Wayne plays it with an almost drunken exhaustion to make you think it's been awhile—but, it just doesn't "play."

Wayne's Wilder makes things difficult for his captors by setting fire to his mattress, which they quickly replace with another—rather accommodating for a Chinese prison, as I don't think a 5-star hotel would replace a mattress that fast—in which is secreted a pistol, a Russian officer's uniform, and a note giving him a rendezvous point. Not only is the prison's housekeeping department efficient, they have a great mail department. Security—not so much. So, Wayne escapes because he's over 6 foot, broad in the beam and wearing a Russian uniform in a Chinese prison and must have just walked out because he "blends." We're not shown this, of course, because we have to save up our credulity for the rest of the movie.

Wayne transitions from his cell to walking along a river bank where he comes across "Big Han" and his fishing vessel. Here's another thing about Blood Alley: casting. There are a lot of Chinese actors in the film, mostly background characters, which is all to the good. But, "Big Han" is played by Mike Mazurki, the well-regarded Ukrainian character actor. I only mention he's Ukrainian so as to point out that he is not Chinese. Neither is Paul Fix, who plays a village elder, nor is Berry Kroeger (another elder), and certainly not Anita Ekberg (!!) who plays the very small part of Han's wife, Wei Ling (she has no dialog as she would speak it with a Swedish accent). Look, I'm not so regimental that I think actors can't act parts, or I'd be rejecting Al Pacino in Scarface, or Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, and Paul Muni in...everything. But Paul Fix? Anita Ekberg? Couldn't we get somebody from the same hemisphere? On that one point, though, there is one little piece of casting that gave me great joy. I'll leave that to the end.

The main plot is that the village of Chiku Shan has made plans to abandon mainland China and transport all 180 residents to Taiwan by hijacking a stern-wheeler which makes a regular stop on it's regular route up and down the coast. From there, they'll navigate through the Strait of Formosa, known as "Blood Alley," to get away, hence the springing of Capt. Wheeler, who knows the waters, knows the dangers, and hates the commies. It's all been arranged by the village elders and Cathy Grainger (Bacall), daughter of the village doctor, who has recently been taken by the Communists for medical help.

Wellman keeps it moving, although sometimes the Cinemascope frame stumps him. The locations are nicely picturesque—you could believe it's not San Rafael—and the stern-wheeler is as grubby as the African Queen only with 180 extras (genuinely Chinese) and becomes something of a character itself. Wayne is crusty and gruffly paternalistic towards his passengers—but then he always is—and Bacall tries—tries—to make something out of a scripted romance with Wayne*, but it's not too convincing. They're a bit better being at odds with each other; after all, both actors are especially good in conflict.

And that's interesting. At the time, Wayne was deep in his crusade of ridding Hollywood of Communists, and Bacall was very much present in protesting the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They couldn't have been farther apart politically and there were attempts, by some in Hollywood, to persuade Wayne to not use Bacall for the picture because of her "pinko" views. Wayne ignored them. But, when Mitchum left the production and Wayne brought in to replace him, Bacall got worried. Instead of any animus, Bacall (in her autobiography) says she found him "to my surprise, warm, likable and helpful,"** and director Wellman "great! A fascinating man!" 

Later, she'd found out that it was Hedda Hopper who'd suggested she be cut—"Don't tell me how to cast my picture" Wayne reportedly growled—and a couple years later at a Clifton Webb-hosted cocktail party, (again from her autobiography) she confronted Hopper calling her "a bitch to try and keep me from working." Hopper replied that, for such an offense, Bacall had every right to give her a kick. "Whereupon she turned around and I kicked her in the ass - most unladylike but very martini-like. Whereupon everyone laughed out loudly and a truce was declared." I think that's my favorite thing about Blood Alley.

Oh, except for one thing. Watching it recently, I spotted a familiar face, that of a much-beloved character actor, in what was (maybe?) his fourth role on-screen—but not credited—as a Communist soldier who enters a room, says a line and leaves. But, it warmed my heart to see him: James Hong, all of 26 years old, unmistakable, and starting a career which continues today. I guarantee you've seen him in something.  Great actor...for comedy and drama, as he proves time and again.

* There is one line I loved—after going through a particularly rough time during a violent storm, Bacall makes a confession that she might be falling for the Captain and Wayne drawls "I think you got me confused with the storm..."

** Wayne was like that, evidently. Ideologically strict. But, personally, he was a gentleman, almost courtly, to women, and "one of the boys" around men. Did they get along? Bacall says when husband Humphrey Bogart was diagnosed with cancer, the first flowers came from Wayne. And when casting for The Shootist (which would, ultimately, be his last film), he asked for Bacall. In September, 2021, the John Wayne Estate released a note they'd found that she'd written to Wayne in 1979, while he was battling his final fight with cancer. 

 

Dear Duke,

This has been on its way to you for months. You have been so very much in my thoughts.  I never have been able to tell you how much you’re standing up for me in ‘Blood Alley’ days meant to me. I wanted to say it on ‘The Shootist’ — never could somehow. — know how difficult that film was for you. You have the guts of a lion — I do admire you more than I can say.  It was so great to see you Academy Award nite. I’m being inarticulate — I want you to know how terrific you are and how really glad I am to know you. You give more than [you] know — I send you much love — constant thoughts

Betty. 

Anytime Movies #5: The Searchers

While I catch up on the reviews still in "Draft" phase here, I'll re-run a feature I ran when I first started this blog seven years ago,**** when it was suggested I do a "Top Ten" List.

I don't like those: they're rather arbitrary; they pit films against each other, and there's always one or two that should be on the list that aren't because something better shoved it down the trash-bin.

So, I came up with this: "Anytime" Movies.

Anytime Movies are the movies I can watch anytime, anywhere. If I see a second of it, I can identify it. If it shows up on television, my attention is focused on it until the conclusion. Sometimes it’s the direction, sometimes it’s the writing, sometimes it’s the acting, sometimes it’s just the idea behind it, but these are the movies I can watch again and again (and again!) and never tire of them. There are ten (kinda). They're not in any particular order, but the #1 movie IS the #1 movie.

It’s a film that chills me right down to my bones and makes me cry every single time.* It throws itself into the deepest pits of despair and within moments, prat-falls into low comedy. It’s a western…about race relations, and in the house of mirrors of a “genre” piece deflects the self-righteous tone of a sermon. It stares into the soul of people at their worst, and exults in their best.

It is arguably John Ford’s best film (and he made many great ones). It is inarguably John Wayne's finest performance on-screen, while completely working against the image that Marion Morrison had built as “John Wayne,” American Hero.

Oh no. We’re talking about The Searchers—a “western” made during the somnambulant 50’s …and with John Wayne, ferchrissakes! How corny can you get?

Back up, pilgrim.

The Searchers has just been re-released (to mark its 50th anniversary**) in a gloriously re-mastered DVD, and has come under critical review for being too corny, too obvious, and more than a little dated. 

Worse still, it has been branded a “film-school darling” that has skated too long on an undeserved reputation as a masterpiece.

Bullshit.

Like Pauline Kael’s faulty detective work dissecting Citizen Kane and Elvis Mitchell’s naïve un-analysis of 2001, the work in Slate smacks of a critic either looking for something to write about or make a name for themselves bucking “conventional wisdom.” Having to spend a summer reviewing the third X-Men movie, the fifth “Superman” opus AND an entirely superfluous “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel is bound to make anyone crabby.

But it shouldn’t lower one’s standards, and there’s enough slip-shod work in the article to indicate that’s the case. At the very least, it’s a terrible gloss-over.

At the worst, it displays a film reviewer who hasn't even seen the film he was supposedly watching for the prejudices and pre-conceived notions that he would rather cling to rather than objectivity.

The Searchers is a masterpiece—the culmination of decades of film-making experience that John Ford had accumulated since the silent era—while crystallizing Ford’s growing disenchantment with the Myth of the West. In a time when westerns were still basically built around the simplistic formula of “Cowboys vs. Indians,” Ford was starting to speak out more explicitly for the latter sixteen years before such accepted “consciousness-raising” films as Little Big Man or Soldier Blue. Like any masterpiece, it displays the sum of a body of work and breaks new ground, paving the way for the future.

The Searchers tells the story of an obsessive 10 year hunt for a lone family member taken in a violent Comanche raid. It’s led by the worst person possible: the child’s uncle--a hate-obsessed confederate soldier, self-exiled from his family, who still carries his saber on his hip, bitterness in his soul and his heart on his sleeve. Mix in a venomous race-hatred for all non-whites and you have the most flawed anti-hero to appear in movies. Ethan Edwards starts his search to bring his niece back alive, but as the years pass and she matures into womanhood, he gives her up as one of the Enemy, and sets out to kill her. At the center of the film’s black heart is that most archaic and useless word: miscegenation.

It’s rough stuff. Rougher still are the attitudes of the settlers towards the Indians that border on hysteria. There’s a haunting scene late in the film where Edwards and his fellow traveler (played by future "Star Trek" Captain Pike and “Teenage Jesus,” Jeffrey Hunter) ride into a fort on the Trail of Tears to inspect some kidnapped white women who have been re-captured—"rescued" they would say—by the Cavalry. 

“It’s hard to believe they’re white” a sergeant says. 

“They ain’t white,” spits Edwards, and at the sound of a shriek from one of the women, he turns to look at her. Ford trucks in the camera fast onto Wayne’s face (mirroring the shot he used to introduce Wayne in their first film together, Stagecoach) and it’s amazing. Wayne was always blessed with a mug that the camera loved***—it could read every emotion that played across it—and in a performance minus the “hero façade” and that turns on the full after-burners that usually blew his co-stars off the screen, this one quiet moment radiates a combination of hate, disgust…and abject fear. No words need to be said to make the point. No words could.

It's what made Ford a great director and Wayne a great actor.

"No, Ethan!  No, you don't!"

And yet, for all its depths of despair amid bloodshed and the race-hysteria, Ford tries to balance it with entertainment. That’s quite the tight-rope walk. But then, it’s not a sermon. It’s a Western. Ford was never so pretentious to be caught lecturing. He’d say if you want to send a message, use the Pony Express. Better to sneak the lessons into the fabric of the story, and distract with shenanigans about wayward lovers, goony old men, and green cavalrymen with pointy swords. One of the incidents involves the unintended marriage of Hunter’s character to a portly Indian maid. It’s the source of raunchy comedy in the vein of Ford’s The Quiet Man—all roughhouse and bad taste. But when Ford’s good guys “The Cavalry” decimate a Native village and the luckless character along with it, Hunter is left to ask “What’d they have to kill her for? She never hurt anybody!” The question hangs in the air with indictments all around.
The Searchers begins and ends with a black screen. In the beginning, the blackness gives way to the vast magical vista of Monument Valley (which figures in two of my anytime movies. If God lives anywhere on Earth, I think it’s on that vast acreage of land overseen by the Navajo) that to Garry Wills suggests an irising lens, but to these eyes seems more of a proscenium arch. At the end it shuts out Ethan Edwards who is left out of the warmth of a family embrace to wander the desert (Of course, Wayne’s character is going to come in eventually and eat…but Ford chooses to leave Edwards outside). His prejudice does not belong with home and hearth...and society…and Civilization. Yet it is also Ford’s choice to leave the character alive, the wolf always at the door.

It’s as if having made his plea for tolerance, Ford cautions us that it will always exist, somewhere.

Will we ever...finally...lose the hate?

“That’ll be the day.”

Robert McGinnis' portrait of Wayne in The Searchers.

Anytime Movies:
The Searchers

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Chinatown
American Graffiti
To Kill a Mockingbird
Goldfinger
Bonus: Edge of Darkness

* A comment on this post and movie—when it was stationed at another blog—asked: "The Searchers makes you cry?!?!? Is it because of all the dead Indians?" Sure. Go with that. But, a lot of settlers are killed, too, and the hunt in The Searchers is precipitated by one such massacre, the matriarch of which is the one woman that Ethan Edwards loves. It's what entwines his search into one of need and of vengeance. 

No, the thing that makes me cry is the act that comes right before the line "Let's go home, Debbie." That line. From that character. At that time. Despite all evidence to the contrary. It's what gives one a small tiny quantum of hope that belies the sentiment of "That'll be the day..."

** And now, it's a few years shy of its 70th.  I wasn't even a year old when it was released.  It's like an old friend that's grown up with me.

*** Screenwriter Robert Towne has a better term for it, the "camera-love" phrase implying a happy accident that doesn't give enough credit to the actors, their craft and experience. He says that actors like Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Gary Cooper are "ruthlessly efficient" in that they can communicate differing emotions with an economy of expression. Those words are particularly apt for Wayne's performance in The Searchers.

**** And, on Sunday, we'll put up a "Don't Make a Scene" feature from each week's film.

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.