I’ve never seen **Stagecoach **before, but I put the blu ray into my Netflix queue. How does it hold up? I enjoy Westerns, but my tastes usually run more toward Clint Eastwood and Spaghetti Westerns.
I’m also considering renting They Died With Their Boots On.
How do these movies hold up today?
Classics like these never grow old. John Ford (Stagecoach) and Raoul Walsh (They Died With Their Boots On) are probably the two greatest directors of Westerns and both movies are masterclasses in the filmmaker’s art.
Watch out for Thomas Mitchell’s Oscar-winning performance in Stagecoach as Doc Boone. And Errol Flynn as Custer in They Died With Their Boots On is, well, he’s Errol Flynn, the camera just loves the guy.
I think this was the first big role for John Wayne.
John Carradine cuts a deck of cards before making a decision … timeless!
I don’t know about Boots, but Stagecoach never gets old. Watch for John Wayne, then watch again for John Carradine’s performance, then Mitchell’s, again for the scenery.
We’ve had some western movies threads, if you need more recommendations for the older movies.
Stagecoach is as fresh today as it was when it was filmed. It’s the touchstone for all westerns made afterwards. This is the movie that made John Wayne the archetypal western hero and John Ford the archetypal western director. In addition, it vividly established the type of characters that populated Westerns from then on. It was also the archetype for the “Ship of Fools” type film, where people of different backgrounds and walks of life have to travel together.
I’ve seen arguments that, at the time Stagecoach was released, the genre was dying and people were thinking that there was nothing more that could be done, other than create cheap adventure films for children. Stagecoach showed that you could still deal with more sophisticated drama and themes within the genre.
Watch it.
Just don’t watch the remake with Bing Crosby, Ann Margaret and Red Buttons. It’s. . .okay, but nowhere near the classic of the original. I have no idea about the TV version with Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, et al.
Be sure you’ve got a good quality DVD, of couse. I’ve seen some crappy prints. And it’s black and white, and slower paced than today’s films, if that matters to you. And it’s got the same problem that Shakespeare has – lots of it has become cliche. So, yeah, it holds up (and I think is a Great film) but you’ve got to approach it with a little sensitivity to the time it was made.
Shakespeare is cliche?
Dude, seriously.
Dex didn’t say Shakespeare was cliched. But so many later writers followed in Shakespeare’s footsteps that some of his work can appear cliched when you first encounter it.
…and once you’ve seen Stagecoach, watch Rio Bravo. 
Stagecoach? a slow pace?
ooooookay.
If it’s the Blu-Ray, I’m assuming it’s the Criterion Collection edition, which means it will be the best print quality out there.
The wife and I watched Stagecoach for the first time about a year ago. Loved it. The special features pointed out there was a legendary stuntman who worked on it whose specialty was falling off horses that are shot. Great stuff. Did it so many times over the years. And yes, this was John Wayne’s big break.
It’s a joke, and I thought a well-known one. “The problem with Shakespeare is that he writes so many cliches.” The joke is that he created the phrases that today we think of as cliches. Ditto with John Ford, STAGECOACH re-invented the western, and many of the characters and situations have been repeated so oft, that an unaware viewer may think of them as cliche.
That stuntman was Yakima Canutt & his truly legendary life would make an excellent movie. If they could find somebody to do the stunts. He worked on the 1925 Ben Hur & coordinated the Chariot Race in Charlton Heston’s version… (Among his many amazing adventures.)
Wasn’t the Mexican innkeeper’s Apache wife named “Yakima”?
(I’m not a serious Western fan but I love Stagecoach.)
That’ll teach you to paraphrase a “well-known” joke.
Movies from the 30s were usually very fast paced (especially Warner Brothers movies). Settings and characters were established quickly, with a shot or two (in Stagecoach see how they establish the character of the banker).
I was reminded of that years ago when I watched the Mel Gibson Maverick. On scene showed him walking out of the hotel, through a western town, and finally going into the sheriff’s office. A 30’s version would have started the scene with him going into the sheriff’s office. No need to establish the background – just get on with it.
Modern films have a lot more action, and get to the action scenes quickly, but they are long and drawn out. But anything to do with character or plot nowadays is deathly slow as compared to the 30s films.
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Probably. Those Wayne movies always seem to have a woman named ‘Montana’ or ‘Iowa’ or ‘Cincinnati’, etc. It was almost a trademark.