Stagecoach

This 1939 landmark made John Wayne a star, revitalized the Western genre, and introduced filmmaker John Ford to the breathtaking landscape of Monument Valley, Utah, which would become the backdrop for his mythic tales of the West. The story revolves around a tiny cross-section of American society—a disparate group of travelers who board the titular stagecoach just as an Apache uprising is brewing on the plains. Dallas (Claire Trevor) is a tough but beautiful young woman of “ill repute” who's been forced out of town by the self-righteous matrons of the “Law and Order League,” along with boozy (but wise) Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell). Among their traveling companions are Southern gentleman-gambler Hatfield (John Carradine), banker Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill), cavalry wife Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), and whiskey salesman Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek). In the driver's seat is Buck (Andy Devine), with Marshall Curly Wilcox (George Bancroft) riding shotgun. Wayne makes a marvelous entrance as the Ringo Kid—a young man on a mission to avenge the death of his family—who falls in love with Dallas along the way. The Indian attack action scenes are still thrilling, but it's Ford's portrait of strangers rising to the challenge that makes the narrative so stirring. Cinematically, Ford's deep-focus technique and expressive use of light made this a blueprint of master moviemaking that Orson Welles studied extensively before making Citizen Kane. Criterion's DVD and Blu-ray releases are newly mastered from a 1942 nitrate duplicate negative (the original is believed lost). While showing serious wear and emulsion scratches, the image is also exceedingly crisp and vivid—the best it's looked on home video to date. The extensive extras include perceptive commentary by Western scholar Jim Kitses, new and archival interviews, a video essay by Tag Gallagher on Ford's visual style, a 1949 radio adaptation, and the recently restored silent feature “Bucking Broadway”—a lively 1917 Western directed by Ford and presented with a new score by Donald Sosin. Also included is an informative booklet. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (S. Axmaker)