Review of Stagecoach (1939) by Dustin G — 10 Feb 2009

This was a western that was far ahead of its time. The performances were more honest, the action was more intense, the plot elements more poignant, than anything else being made in 1939. Of any genre. I actually like this picture better than Ford's most well known and revered western The Searchers.

John Ford, a 'director's director' in that one masterpiece after another seemed to flow from him with ease, probably helped to invent the way westerns as we know them were made then and are still being made today. As I said, the performances are great, I especially loved Andy Devine and John Wayne's, and the direction is almost overwhelming. The stagecoach attack towards the end of the picture is one of the best directed sequences I have ever seen in a western.

Stagecoach was made right before The Grapes of Wrath and showed Ford was 'in the zone' so to speak and would remain there, on and off, for almost another forty years.