US 96m Director: John Ford Key Cast: John Wayne
Stagecoach is a Western but it also falls into a genre of films I always enjoy where a group of people travelling on public transport get to know each other and face danger together.
Here said public transport is obviously a stagecoach travelling across the Old West with nine passengers on including a Marshall, a drunken doctor, a prostitute, a pregnant military wife and escaped prisoner the Ringo Kid (John Wayne).
It's interesting to see John Wayne in a relatively early role. It's actually not even close to being his first Western as he appeared as an extra in 1926's The Great K and A Train Robbery and had had more prominent roles in quite a few more. Stagecoach is the film that really elevated his career though and you can see why because as the Ringo Kid he's the most interesting character in the film, a likeable rogue that you want to see succeed.
Really the film is setting up this random group of people coming face to face with an attacking tribe of apaches which we are told are attacking people right at the start. It takes a long time to reach this point though as we are gradually introduced to each character and then they start interacting with other. There seem to be endless scenes where the passengers are stuck in a house somewhere trying to decide whether to continue on their journey or not with the threat of apaches getting closer and gradually more and more challenges added.
When the film does reach the apache attack though it depicts it brilliantly well. The attack is sudden and shocking and what follows is a hugely entertaining action sequence which is technically superb for the 1930s, combined with some superb stunt work from the people playing the apaches. There's a sense that virtually any character could be killed and it's not clear how they are going to escape. The film may be pretty slow going but this sequence is anything but.
Of course, like most Westerns until at least the 1990s this has a very warped depiction of Native Americans. We never see anything of the apaches beyond them attacking the stagecoach and they are depicted only as violent savages. It never mentions the fact these people have been brutally pushed out of their homeland and doesn't even consider they might be complicated human beings as well. There's also a pretty dodgy depiction of a Mexican character at one point too so this isn't a film which is anything close to politically correct.
A great story but it's just a shame that it takes so long to get to the exciting bit. At least said exciting bit is superb.
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