Westward, and Into Legend...

In 1937, director John Ford bought the rights to a short story he'd read in the April issue of Collier's magazine, "Stage to Lordsburg"; two years later, his film translation -- 1939's Stagecoach -- would make movie history.

Prior to the success of Stagecoach, Hollywood thought of the Western as B-grade movie material, at best, and unlikely to be big box office.

When John Ford began his search for a producer, the whole project was viewed with skepticism by producers like David O. Selznick (who was busy with pre-production on another large budget picture, Gone With the Wind), and the director's insistence on the use of a no-name actor like John Wayne for one of the key roles was thought far too risky for any real investment.

John Wayne, in a publicity still for The Big Trail (1930)

John Wayne had been at the studio since the silent days, starting while a student on football scholarship at the University of Southern California; legend has it Tom Mix found him work as a prop man in return for football tickets. (Wayne, a 6'4" tackle, lost his scholarship after a surfing injury and never graduated.)

Wayne (who started out acting under his real name, Marion Morrison, or as "Duke Morrison"), was soon finding bit parts in movies, many with John Ford, who felt the young actor had a great future ahead of him.

But prior to Stagecoach, Wayne was still struggling  -- mostly working for low-budget studios known collectively as "Poverty Row" --and the only big-budget Western that he had starred in (1930's The Big Trail) had been financially unsuccessful.




(It was Ford who got John Wayne that role in The Big Trail; he recommended Wayne to director Raoul Walsh. And it was Walsh who furnished Marion Morrison with a new stage name. He first suggested 'Anthony Wayne,' after a Revolutionary War hero. When the studio thought that sounded "too Italian," he countered with 'John' as a perfectly all-American second choice.  John Wayne had had the nickname "Duke" since childhood; his constant companion growing up was an Airedale named Duke, and the family took to calling the boy "little Duke.")

Wayne (left) and John Ford (in background, left)
on the set of Stagecoach

The track record of the director himself proved to be another problem. Ford had followed his brother, vaudevillian-turned- film director Francis Ford, to Hollywood, making his directorial debut in either 1914 or 1917 (accounts vary), and by 1927, had some 80+ films under his belt.

Though he had turned out an impressive array, some of which had been very successful (including 1927's The Iron Horse), there was some question as to whether he could turn his enthusiasm for his newest pet project into  box-office gold.

Claire Trevor and John Wayne in Stagecoach still

When Ford finally secured a producer, Wally Wanger, he was offered little more than half the budget he had asked for -- mainly because of his refusal to replace John Wayne with Gary Cooper. Ford's concession to secure the backing was to give actress Claire Trevor top billing; at the time, she had more name recognition than any of the other actors, thanks to a series of lead roles in movies opposite names like Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy.

John Ford, at John Ford's Point in Monument Valley

Stagecoach marked John Ford's first foray into Utah's Monument Valley, a five-mile wide expanse of flat red silt, punctuated by buttes and tall mesas, which became his favorite place to film, owing both to the remoteness of the locale (Ford despised studio oversight) and its iconic and desolate look. One particular area and vantage point, used in The Seachers (1956), was named in honor of the director and has become a popular tourist destination.





John Ford would later say he was particularly attracted to Stagecoach "because there's not a single respectable character in the cast."

Preparing for a scene on the set of Stagecoach

Thanks to several story changes suggested by famed Chicago reporter-turned-screenwriter Ben Hecht (made during a weekend trip on Ford's yacht at Catalina Island) -- the Ringo Kid is a fugitive; his love interest is a 'saloon girl'; and other travelers include an alcoholic doctor, a pregnant society belle, a whiskey salesman, and a larcenous banker.

"It violates all the censorial canons," said Stagecoach screenwriter Dudley Nichols.



(Much later, when Hecht saw the finished movie, he remarked to Ford that is was a great story, though somewhat familiar. "I really like it."

"You ought to," Ford replied. "You wrote it.")



Though it failed to win Best Director of Best Picture (losing out to Gone with the Wind), Stagecoach catapulted John Ford into the top tier of directors, and leading man John Wayne onto the A-list. Wayne and Ford would go on to team up many times; their fifty-year collaboration yielded some two dozen films, among them such classics as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).



Stagecoach would also prove to be a landmark in the career of a trail-blazing, champion rodeo rider-actor-stuntman named Enos Edward "Yakima" Canutt.

Like Wayne, Canutt is alleged to have gotten his start in films thanks to movie cowboy Tom Mix.





In this and future movies with John Wayne, Canutt worked out techniques for realistic screen fighting scenes that are still used today. He also went on to develop safety devices and special rigging for use by stuntmen.

It was Yakima Canutt who performed the most talked about stuntwork in the film.

Canutt would later replicate and improve upon his signature stunt -- dropping between a team of racing horses and sliding to the rear of the stagecoach -- in 1938's Zorro's Fighting Legion, adding in a backflip and a climb onto the back of the stagecoach.



(This stunt would be performed again -- as an homage to Canutt -- in a little known film called Raiders of the Lost Ark.)

Canutt's stunt in Stagecoach is consistently cited as either the best or second-best movie stunt of all time (behind Buster Keaton's falling house in Steamboat Bill, Jr.). Another piece of stuntwork considered the best of all time: the chariot race in Ben Hur, coordinated by Yakima, with his son Joe doubling for Charlton Heston. )

His career as a stunt coordinator continued into the 1970s; Canutt earned an Honorary Oscar for his work, as well as induction into rodeo and stuntwork Halls of Fame.








Stagecoach, a story of corruption and redemption, was destined to become a classic. Its sweeping landscapes, skilled use of foreshadowing, dramatic lighting and camera angles, and dependence on plot rather than action set a new standard for Westerns and influenced future directors and actors.





Orson Welles is said to have watched the movie dozens of times before filming Citizen Kane, calling it "my textbook...John Ford was my teacher." And when asked which directors he most admired, Welles replied, "The old masters. By which I mean, John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford."

"So they tell me you want to be a picture maker. What do you know about art?...When you’re able to distinguish the art of the horizon at the bottom of a frame, or at the top of the frame -- but not going right through the center of the frame -- when you’re able to appreciate why it’s at the top and why it’s at the bottom, you might make a pretty good picture-maker. Now, get out of here."

-- John Ford, to 15-year-old Stephen Spielberg

Join the Conyers-Rockdale Library this month as we celebrate the Western.

The Westerns display -- featuring Stagecoach, along with other Western DVDs, audiobooks and books -- is located adjacent to the New Books section.