Stagecoach (1939)
Trivia
Orson Welles has put forth this film as a textbook example of filmmaking and said he had watched it more than 40 times in preparation for the making of Citizen Kane (1941).
Asked why, in the climactic chase scene, the Indians didn't simply shoot the horses to stop the stagecoach, director John Ford replied, "Because that would have been the end of the movie." In addition, Apaches would have stolen the stagecoach horses rather than killed them because, in their culture, horses were valuable in calculating a warrior's worth.
Yakima Canutt explained how the stunt was accomplished where, as an Apache warrior attacking the stagecoach, he is "shot", falls off his horse, and then gets dragged underneath the stagecoach: "You have to run the horses fast, so they'll run straight. If they run slow, they move around a lot. When you turn loose to go under the coach, you've got to bring your arms over your chest and stomach. You've got to hold your elbows close to your body, or that front axle will knock them off." After the stunt was completed, Canutt ran to director John Ford to make sure they got the stunt on film. Ford replied that even if they hadn't, "I'll never shoot that again."
The hat that John Wayne wears was his own. He would wear it in many westerns during the next two decades before retiring it after Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959) because it was simply "falling apart." After that, the hat was displayed under glass in his home.
John Ford liked to bully actors on the set, and this movie was no exception. At one point, he said to Andy Devine, "You big tub of lard. I don't know why the hell I'm using you in this picture." Undaunted, Devine replied, "Because Ward Bond can't drive six horses." Likewise, he attacked Thomas Mitchell, who eventually retorted, "Just remember: I saw [Ford's earlier film] Mary of Scotland (1936)," effectively humbling the director. Worst of all was Ford's treatment of John Wayne. He called him a "big oaf" and a "dumb bastard" and continually criticized his line delivery and manner of walking, even how he washed his face on camera. However, at least part of this was to provoke the actor into giving a stronger performance. Claire Trevor recalls how Ford grabbed Duke by the chin and shook him. "Why are you moving your mouth so much?" he said. "Don't you know you don't act with your mouth in pictures? You act with your eyes." Wayne tolerated the rough treatment and rose to the challenge, reaching a new plateau as an actor. Ford helped cement the impression that Wayne makes in the film by giving him plenty of expressive reaction shots throughout the picture.
The film's original negatives were either lost or destroyed. John Wayne had one positive print that had never been through a projector gate. In 1970 he permitted it to be used to produce a new negative and all resultant prints of the film seen today at film festivals are derived from that "new negative." UCLA fully restored the film in 1996 from surviving elements and premiered it on cable's American Movie Classics (AMC) network. The previous DVD releases by Warner Home Video did not contain the restored print, but rather a video print held in the Castle Hill/Caidin Trust library.
Local Navajo Indians played the Apaches. The film's production was a huge economic boost to the local impoverished population, giving jobs to hundreds of locals as extras and handymen.
A stunt known as a "Running W" was used to cause the Indians' horses to fall during the sequence where they are chasing the stagecoach. Strong, thin wires were fixed to a metal post anchored in the ground, while the other ends of the wires were attached to an iron clamp that encircled the legs of each horse. A horse was then ridden at full gallop, and when a wire's maximum length was reached--just when the rider was "shot"--the animal's legs would be jerked from beneath it, causing it to tumble violently and throw off the "shot" rider. A rider could anticipate the fall, but the horse could not, resulting in many horses either being killed outright or having to be destroyed because of broken limbs incurred during the falls. The use of the "Running W" was eventually discontinued after many complaints from both inside and outside the film industry.
John Ford declined to use John Wayne in any of his 1930s films, despite their close friendship, telling Wayne to wait until he was "ready" as an actor. Ford successfully sought to use this film to make Wayne a big movie star. The early scene where Ringo stops the stagecoach for a ride and twirls his Winchester rifle while the camera zooms in on his face is the exclamation mark on that effort.
Louise Platt, who played the very proper Mrs. Lucy Mallory, wasn't quite so prim off-camera. Observing John Wayne on the set one day, Platt turned to Claire Trevor and said, "I think he has the most beautiful buttocks I have ever seen."
John Ford loved the Monument Valley location so much that the actual stagecoach journey traverses the valley three times.
In 1939 no paved road ran through Monument Valley: this is why it hadn't been used as a movie location before Stagecoach. (There wasn't a paved road until the 1950s.) Harry Goulding, who ran a trading post there, had heard that John Ford was planning a big-budget Western. So he traveled to Hollywood armed with over 100 photographs of Monument Valley and threatened to camp out on Ford's doorstep until the director saw him and the photographs. Ford saw him almost immediately. He was instantly sold on the location, particularly when he realized that its remoteness would free him from studio interference.
Near the end of the movie, Luke Plummer (Tom Tyler), is notified that the Ringo Kid is waiting for him. Just before Plummer's notified, while playing poker, it's revealed that he has has a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights. A poker hand with this pair of cards is the notorious "dead man's hand," a hand supposed to have been held by Wild Bill Hickok just before he was murdered during a poker game.
One scene, which required the stagecoach full of passengers to be floated across a river, technician deemed impossible to pull off. John Ford considered removing the scene from the script altogether. Yakima Canutt, however, suggested tying to the coach hollowed-out logs, which would increased buoyancy and thus offset the weight of the fully loaded coach. In addition, an underwater cable was used to help pull the stagecoach. Canutt's plan worked, and the scene was retained for the film.
The interior sets all have visible ceilings that were filmed, an unusual practice at the time for studio filming. This was done to create a claustrophobic effect, in complete counterpoint to the wide open expanse of Monument Valley.
Modern sources have frequently indicated that the film raised the status of Westerns from the "B" to "A" level. However, according to contemporary sources, Stagecoach was one of several Westerns made between late 1938 and early 1939 that were produced on large budgets including Union Pacific (1939), Jesse James (1939), Dodge City (1939), and Stand Up and Fight (1939).
Yakima Canutt is the stuntman who doubles for John Wayne and leaps from the coach to the three-yoked-paired team of horses traveling at breakneck speeds.
John Wayne's salary was considerably less than all of his co-stars, apart from John Carradine.
Thomas Mitchell had stopped drinking alcohol more than two years before he played the drunken Doc Boone.
The film made John Wayne a major star, nine years after the failure of The Big Trail (1930).
Hosteen Tso, a local shaman, promised John Ford the exact kind of cloud formations he wanted. They duly appeared.
John Ford gave John Wayne the script, asking him for any suggestions as to who could play the Ringo Kid. Wayne suggested Lloyd Nolan, not realizing that Ford was baiting him with the part. Additionally, once filming began, Ford was merciless to Wayne, constantly undermining him. This psychological tactic was designed to make Wayne start feeling some real emotions and to be unintimidated by acting alongside the likes of such seasoned professionals as Thomas Mitchell.
This was the first of many films that John Ford filmed in Monument Valley, Arizona. Others were: My Darling Clementine (1946); Fort Apache (1948); She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949); Wagon Master (1950); Rio Grande (1950); The Searchers (1956); Sergeant Rutledge (1960); and his last western, Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
John Ford originally wanted Ward Bond to play Buck the stage driver. However, he gave the role to Andy Devine when he found that Bond couldn't drive a "six-up" stagecoach and that not enough time existed to teach him.
John Ford employed scores of local Indians to play Apache warriors and the various Indian tribes in many of his other Westerns. More than 200 were hired just for the climactic attack on the stagecoach alone. For his commitment to providing them with much needed work (paying them on a union scale no less), the Navajos called Ford "Natani Nez," which means "tall leader."
Although John Wayne had minor roles in John Ford's Mother Machree (1927) and Salute (1929), this film was the real start of their partnership.
When the film was being cast, John Ford lobbied hard for John Wayne but producer Walter Wanger kept turning him down. It was only after constant persistence on Ford's part that Wanger finally gave in. His reservations were based on Wayne's string of B-movies, in which he came across as being a less than competent actor, and the box-office failure of Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail (1930), Wayne's first serious starring role.
Ranked #9 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Western" in June 2008.
John Ford was so pleased with the way Yakima Canutt solved the problem of safely shooting the stagecoach's river crossing that he gave Yakima carte blanche in creating all the stunts for the film.
The events in the film take place in June 1880, as evidenced by the Lordsburg newspaper setting type for a story about the Republican convention held in Chicago,. That convention took place from June 2 through June 8 1880 at the International Exposition Building. James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur were nominated as the Republican candidates for president and vice president, respectively.
In 1939, Claire Trevor was the film's biggest star and commanded the highest salary.
Louise Platt, in a letter recounting the experience of the film's production, quoted John Ford on saying of John Wayne's future in film: "He'll be the biggest star ever because he is the perfect 'everyman."
It's believed by many that the famous line "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do"--widely attributed to a John Wayne Western character--is spoken by Wayne in this film. It isn't. His character, The Ringo Kid, instead says, "There are some things a man just can't run away from." This is his response when asked why he intends to stay and avenge his family's murders rather than to try to escape to Mexico.
The film grossed nearly $1 million by the end of 1939, earning the largest profits of any Walter Wanger film production to that date.
Andy Devine was borrowed from Universal, John Carradine was borrowed from Twentieth Century-Fox, and John Wayne was borrowed from Republic.
In 1938, John Ford invited John Wayne on a weekend boat trip to read a copy of the script by Ted Nichols with a request to recommend an actor to play the Ringo Kid. Ford said, "I'm having a hell of a time deciding whom to cast as the Ringo Kid. You know a lot of young actors, Duke. See what you think." Wayne suggested Lloyd Nolan for the part, but Ford was non-committal to the idea. "Nolan?" Ford asked incredulously. "Jesus Christ, I just wish to hell I could find some young actor in this town who can ride a horse and act." The next day, as the boat pulled into the harbour, Ford declared, "I have made up my mind. I want you to play the Ringo Kid." The offer left Wayne feeling as if he had been "hit in the belly with a baseball bat" and fearing that Ford would change his mind and hire Nolan instead.
Elvira Ríos, who had an uncredited minor role as Chris-Pin Martin's wife Yakima, was a famous Mexican singer who was very popular in Latin America. At the time she appeared in the film, she had a weekly NBC radio program and a contract with Decca Records.
The Breen Office, the censorship watchdog in Hollywood, rejected Dudley Nichols treatment because of the story's sympathetic portrayal of the prostitute Dallas, Doc Boone's constant drunkenness, the Ringo Kid's thirst for revenge, and the marshal's involvement in some deaths. Nichols' first draft script took the Breen Office suggestions to heart, and the production went ahead without further objections from the censors.
Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamps featured Stagecoach (1939), Beau Geste (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Gone with the Wind (1939).
The premise of Ernest Haycox's story comes from Guy de Maupassant's famous story 'Boule de Suif' ("Ball of Fat"), which takes place in Normandy during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.
John Ford asked David O. Selznick to produce the film. Selznick was interested in making the film, but only if he could have Gary Cooper as the Ringo Kid and Marlene Dietrich as Dallas.
The first of three films in which John Wayne and Claire Trevor were paired as a romantic team.
Producer Walter Wanger wanted Gary Cooper for the role of Ringo, but Cooper's fees were too high. Bruce Cabot unsuccessfully tested for it before John Ford got his wish and cast John Wayne.
The members of the production crew were billeted in Kayenta, in northeastern Arizona, in an old CCC camp. Conditions were spartan, production hours long, and weather conditions at the 5700-foot elevation were extreme with constant strong winds and low temperatures. Nonetheless, John Ford was satisfied with the crew's location work.
A biography of John Ford notes that he spent $2500 for the rights to the story on which the film was based. It further notes that in 1937, after co-writing a script with Dudley Nichols, Ford tried unsuccessfully to interest Darryl F. Zanuck at Twentieth Century-Fox in the film. According to the biography, other studios approached were MGM, Paramount, Columbia, and Warner Bros.
The six-sheet poster declares, "A Powerful Story of 9 Strange People!" and features head shots of the coach's nine passengers. However, it mistakenly substitutes director John Ford's brother Francis Ford for Berton Churchill.
Hatfield's exact role and position in Mrs. Mallory's father's regiment in the Confederate Army during the late "War for the Southern Confederacy" is never explicitly stated. However, while giving a toast to all of the men in the stagecoach near the end of the journey, Doc Boone refers to Hatfield as "Major".
Joel McCrea and Errol Flynn turned down the role of The Ringo Kid.
John Ford initially wanted Katharine Hepburn to play Dallas . He'd previously worked with her on Mary of Scotland (1936), and he'd had an affair with her.
In devising the Ringo Kid, John Ford referred back to a silent-era Western hero he created with Harry Carey called Cheyenne Harry.
John Wayne, John Carradine, and Andy Devine were all in the cast of John Ford's 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
Dr. Boone's misquote--"Is this the face that wrecked a thousand ships / and burned the towerless tops of Ilium?"--is from "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe, Scene xiv.
Included on the list of"1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
According to publicity items, the picture was produced with the cooperation of the Navajo-Apache Indian agencies and the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The interior scenes of the coach were all shot in a studio, and the town sequences were shot on Hollywood backlots.
The cast includes three Oscar winners (Claire Trevor, John Wayne, and Thomas Mitchell) and one Oscar nominee (George Bancroft).
With the exception of a few small clouds, the skies as seen over Monument Valley in this film are indistinct. The ability to film subtle cloud formations was a problem for director John Ford and other directors of the day. Some years later, after his experience in filming with the Navy in the Pacific during World War II, Ford solved this problem by using infrared film stock. The dramatic skies first seen in Ford's Fort Apache (1948) are the result.
Dallas accepts a canteen after Mrs. Mallory is given a drink by Hatfield. The canteen appears to be a gray former Confederate one with the regimental number 51 on it.
"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30-minute radio adaptation of the movie on 9 January 1949 with John Wayne and Claire Trevor reprising their film roles.
Included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.
Since this movie greatly influenced Orson Welles while preparing the shooting of Citizen Kane (1941), it is also worth noting that Thomas Mitchell has worked with both actors who portrayed Charles Foster Kane: Orson Welles and Buddy Swan. Welles provided the opening narration for Swiss Family Robinson (1940) whereas Swan played Thomas Mitchell's son in The Fighting Sullivans (1944).
Richard Hageman's theme music was as iconic as the film, and it was used in many productions subsequent to this1939 film. The Hopalong Cassidy film series and TV series Gunsmoke (1955) are two production examples. The Cassidy film The Showdown (1940) used it as its main theme, and other Cassidy films regularly played a short burst of the theme to announce a stagecoach entering a scene. "Gunsmoke" used the theme as its background score during the early seasons before the series moved from a 30- to a 60-minute format.
Although Louis Gruenberg receives screen credit for the musical score, his contribution was not used, and his name was omitted for the Academy Award nomination.
On release, the film was dubbed "Grand Hotel on wheels." Grand Hotel (1932) was a successful 1932 movie.
The first collaboration of Tim Holt and John Ford. The second time was working on My Darling Clementine (1946).
Before winning the Oscar for this film, Thomas Mitchell had already received an Oscar nomination for playing another drunken doctor in a movie directed by John Ford: Dr. Kersaint in The Hurricane (1937).
John Wayne's rifle in this movie, was later used by Chuck Connors ((Lucas McCain) in the television series "The Rifleman"!
[!!!!] Due to John Wayne's participation in this movie, Republic Pictures had to postpone "The Three Mesquiteers" pictures for 6 weeks.
The film's reputation suffered in later years, as it was widely condemned as racist for its portrayal of the Native American Indians.
In Frontier Marshal (1939), also released in 1939, John Carradine plays a disreputable character named Carter, who is opening a "pleasure palace" in Tombstone because he was driven out of Lordsburg. "Stagecoach" is based on the Ernest Haycox story "Stage to Lordsburg."
John Wayne was about halfway through a contract obligation to act in a series of Three Mesquiteers westerns when this picture made him a star. He completed the remainder of the series but the studio reasonably wanted him in higher end movies where the profits would be greater. The Mesquiteers movies were still making money as Saturday programmers, so Tom Tyler, who played Wayne's enemy here, was cast as Stoney Brooke, the same character Wayne had played, and the series continued.
"Academy Award Theater" broadcast a 30-minute radio adaptation of the movie on 5/4/46 with Claire Trevor reprising her film role.
John Ford spent $2,500 for the rights to the Ernest Haycox story on which the film was based. In 1937, after co-writing a script with Dudley Nichols, Ford tried unsuccessfully to interest Darryl F. Zanuck at Twentieth Century-Fox. Other studios approached were MGM, Paramount, Columbia and Warner Bros.
One of two dozen Walter Wanger / Harry Sherman / Cinema Guild productions, initially released by United Artists. The movie was then re-released theatrically in 1948 by Masterpiece Productions, who ultimately sold the movie for U.S television syndication in 1950. It was first telecast on Sunday 14 May 1950 in Los Angeles on KTLA (Channel 5); on Monday 15 May 1950 in Chicago on WENR (Channel 7); in Albuquerque on Tuesday 1 August 1950 on KOB (Channel 4); in New York City on Saturday 5 August 1950 on WCBS; in Detroit on Sunday 6 August 1950, on WXYZ (Channel 7); in Atlanta on Thursday 14 September 1950, on WSB (Channel 8); in Philadelphia on Saturday 16 September 1950, on WFIL (Channel 6); in Cincinnati on Saturday, 30 September 1950, on WKRC (Channel 11); in Phoenix on Wednesday 4 October 1950, on KPHO (Channel 5); in Boston on Sunday 22 October 1950, on WNAC (Channel 7); and on Saturday 4 November 1950, in San Francisco on KGO (Channel 7).
Buck suggests that Mrs. Mallory exit the coach to stretch her legs, then quickly says "limbs" as a polite gesture. John Wayne does the same with Elizabeth Allen in Donovan's Reef in 1963.
Refering to the size of his family, Buck tells Curley he must be feeding "half the state of Chihuahua". The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States officially created the Mexican states in 1824, originally with nineteen states and four federal territories.
One of the most recognizable films released on VHS from the old Time-Life Video label during the 1970s.
Ringo tells Dallas he was "almost seventeen" when he went to prison. He is clearly in his late twenties now. Why did he wait so long to break out of prison to get his revenge? Given that he wouldn't be permitted to practice with his gun in prison, his reputation as a gunman must have been established no later than age sixteen. While not impossible, it's highly unlikely.
