Stagecoach 1939
I have been trying to get as many of AFI's 1998 Top 100 movies as I can. I have most of them, so I was happy to add Stagecoach from Criterion. Still, some of those movies haven't really aged well or maybe were overrated, so I was wary. Plus it is a Western and a very early one at that, so I was kind of apprehensive. John Ford didn't let me down. Despite the film being pretty beat up and maybe a little dark, it does look great. Ford composes some great scenes. I knew he was famous for shooting in Monument Valley, and it is funny to see that every time the stagecoach leaves town, it goes right by Monument Valley again, like all of these towns were in a circle around it or something. More importantly, he does a nice job with light and framing characters, more impressive given the year it was made, 1939. Orson Welles even studied the film when making Citizen Kane. Ford also puts together a great cast as well as a great cast of characters. It was a breakthrough role for John Wayne, but there are some other great character actors from that era, who all do very nice work. Andy Devine struggles a little, but is still a great fit for his part. The stagecoach itself packs the characters in, literally and figuratively, which can make for a great movie. I liked how the movie progressed and how the characters develop over the course of the movie. And the running time is short enough at 96 minutes that I was able to watch it in one night, which is pretty good for me.
As usual, Criterion includes a lot of nice extras with their releases. There is a booklet which includes an essay, but also the short story that Stagecoach was based on, published in 1937. In addition to interviews and documentaries, the disk also includes a silent film that John Ford directed early in his career. Though he was most famous for Westerns, he had gotten away from them until he made Stagecoach. I read the short story, but haven't watched the silent movie yet.
Written: 26 Mar 2023
Owned on: Blu-ray