Stagecoach (1939 film)

Stagecoach
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn Ford
Screenplay byDudley Nichols
Based on"The Stage to Lordsburg"
1937 Collier's
by Ernest Haycox
Produced byWalter Wanger
Starring
CinematographyBert Glennon
Edited by
Music by
Production
company
Walter Wanger Productions
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release dates
  • February 2, 1939 (1939-02-02) (Los Angeles)[1]
  • March 3, 1939 (1939-03-03) (U.S.)[1]
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$531,374[2]
Box office$1,103,757[2]

Stagecoach is a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne in his breakthrough role. The screenplay by Dudley Nichols is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox. The film follows a group primarily composed of strangers riding on a stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory.

The film has long been recognized as an important work that transcends the Western genre. In 1995, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.[3] Still, Stagecoach has not avoided controversy. Like most Westerns of the era, its depiction of Native Americans as simplistic savages has been criticized.[4]

Stagecoach was the first of many Westerns that Ford shot in Monument Valley, on the Arizona–Utah border in the American Southwest. Many of the movies Ford filmed there also starred John Wayne. Scenes from Stagecoach, including a sequence introducing Wayne as the Ringo Kid, blended shots of Monument Valley with those filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, RKO Encino Ranch, and other locations. As a result, geographic incongruities appear, including the closing scene where Ringo (Wayne) and Dallas (Trevor) depart Lordsburg in southwestern New Mexico by way of Monument Valley.

  1. ^ a b "Stagecoach: Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  2. ^ a b Matthew Bernstein, Walter Wagner: Hollywood Independent, Minnesota Press, 2000 p439
  3. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  4. ^ Aleiss, Angela (2005). Making the White Man's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies. Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 60. ISBN 9780275983963.