movie film review | chris tookey
 
     
     
 

Stagecoach


© Walter Wanger Productions, Inc. - all rights reserved
     
  Stagecoach Review
Tookey's Rating
5 /10
 
Average Rating
9.55 /10
 
Starring
Claire Trevor (pictured left), John Wayne (pictured right), Thomas Mitchell
Full Cast >
 

Directed by: John Ford
Written by: Dudley Nichols (and an uncredited Ben Hecht), from Ernest Haycox's story Stage to Lordsburg, inspired by Guy de Maupassant's Boule de Suif

 
Tookey's Review
Pro Reviews
Mixed Reviews
Anti Reviews
Cast
 
 
Released: 1939
   
Genre: WESTERN
   
Origin: US
   
Colour: BW
   
Length: 99
 
 


 
A stagecoach travels west, and falls foul of an Indian attack.
Reviewed by Chris Tookey



A seminal western, despite its unreconstructed view of Indians as savages, and a long first hour, in which characters are set up at a pace which will strike modern audiences as pedestrian. The climactic attack is among the most exciting ever filmed - and is all the more effective because we have come to care about the characters.

Stagecoach made a star of John Wayne, who had been languishing in B-features; it established Monument Valley in Utah as the classic western location; and it made John Ford the foremost director in this genre - prior to this, he had not directed a Western for 13 years.

The New York Film Critics voted Ford Best Director; but credit should also go to cinematographer Bert Glennon, art director Alexander Toluboff, and editor Dorothy Spencer, all of them Oscar-nominated. The Academy Award-winning music (by Richard Hegeman, W. Frank Harling, John Leopold, Leo Shuken and Louis Gruenberg) also played an important role in making this film a classic.


Key to Symbols