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Busby Berkeley musicals. Cecil B. DeMille Biblical epics. John Ford Westerns. Ford was one of those few directors who came to embody a whole genre, shaping it in his image. He made his first Western in 1917 and his last in 1964, along the way turning out classics like My Darling Clementine, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache, How the West Was Won, Rio Grande, Iron Horse, Wagon Master and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.
In 1939’s Stagecoach, Ford’s first Western of the sound era, a group of disparate passengers travel together through Apache country, becoming a society in miniature along the way. There’s Dallas (Claire Trevor), a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold who’s just been run out of town, alongside the alcoholic Doc Brown (Thomas Mitchell). The very pregnant, well-to-do Mrs. Mallory (Louise Platt) is making the journey to be with her cavalry officer husband, escorted by gentleman gambler Hatfield (John Carradine). Not far along the road, the stagecoach arrives at the side of the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), stranded after busting out of prison with vengeance on his mind. Though he proves vital in defending the passengers from Apache danger later on, he never forgets about his ultimate goal: to kill the men who murdered his family.
Orson Welles watched Stagecoach 40 times before he made Citizen Kane. He said of Ford, “At his best, you feel that the movie has lived and breathed in a real world.” That’s as succinct a way as any to explain Ford’s cinematic mastery; in Stagecoach he seamlessly balanced the sweeping landscapes (it was the first film to establish Monument Valley as the iconic Western location) with viscerally thrilling action sequences, and the intimate interplay between his extensive cast of characters, to create a movie that still feels bracingly tangible.
Although Ford is often considered right-wing (the reality is less cut-and dried), he consistently made films that sided with the underdog. Dallas, Doc Brown and Ringo are all operating outside the bounds of polite society, but they are always the ones who step up in times of danger. Nevertheless, Ford’s approach to Native Americans is as simplistically offensive as in the bulk of the era’s Westerns; to quote Roger Ebert, “The Apaches are seen simply as murderous savages; there’s no suggestion that white men have invaded their land.”
Stagecoach made John Wayne famous, although he’d been slogging in bit parts and low-budget pictures for 13 years by the time it was released, having appeared in over 70 movies spanning back into the silent era. Still, starting from the way Ford’s camera barrels into Wayne in his introductory shot, briefly losing focus as if it had gotten dizzy from being in his mere presence, it’s clear that he was determined to finally elevate him to stardom. Ford was often brutal in his methods—as a director, he was a notorious bully who did not spare his most famous collaborator—but he and Wayne would make 14 films together across four decades, becoming one of the foundational actor/director pairings of the Western genre. The original Stagecoach is packed with legendary character actors working at their very best, but the movie arranges itself around Wayne, and he proves a steady, commanding hand.
Which is more than can be said for Alex Cord, the Ringo of the 1966 version of Stagecoach. Directed by veteran journeyman Gordon Douglas, and co-starring Ann-Margret as Dallas, Bing Crosby as Doc Brown, and our old friend Van Heflin as the marshal keeping them all together, the first remake was an odd beast. Engineered by producer Martin Rackin, who wanted to introduce the story to new audiences in DeLuxe Color CinemaScope, it was released into unfriendly ground for the Western. The golden era had long finished, and the influence of the Spaghetti Western had not yet fully permeated. As such, like 1969’s Paint Your Wagon, the unfortunate film that’d come to define this awkward time for American Westerns, Rackin’s production seemed rather old-fashioned. Besides being shot in color, little differs from the original, although the fact that it’s 20 minutes longer than its predecessor does allow more time to get to know the large roster of characters.
There are some pleasures to be had with that eclectic cast—Crosby’s last performance in a theatrical movie is an interesting precursor to his last in a televisual one; Heflin gives a typically good showing as the weary but kind-hearted marshal—but Alex Cord is such a black hole of charisma, he ends up sucking everyone in with him, and Douglas’ direction is too workmanlike to add any artistic interest. Overall, the contemporary reviews were muted, with the general tone being, “Why did they bother?”
Twenty years later, there was another attempt at a Stagecoach remake, which took an unexpected tack. This 1986 version was the only movie project of country music supergroup The Highwaymen; Kris Kristofferson was Ringo Kid, Willie Nelson the Doctor, Johnny Cash the Marshal and Waylon Jennings the gentleman gambler. Elizabeth Ashley played Dallas, and Mary Crosby (daughter of Bing) the prim and proper Mrs. Mallory.
Of course, the TV movie vanity project of an aging country music supergroup is not the artistic equal of Ford’s original. Unlike the 1966 version, it doesn’t even try to ape the showpiece third act action sequence. Nevertheless, it is an astonishingly good hang. While Kristofferson is the sole “proper” actor among the Highwaymen, the evident affection between the four gives the 1986 film an endearing warmth, and the dialogue by James Lee Barrett is bursting with flavor. This is a movie that has Johnny Cash deliver the immortal line, “What’s an ovary?” The resultant exchange is the funniest of all the Stagecoaches.
On a more serious level, the 1986 remake proves an unlikely but uplifting example of how social progression can change even a story set over 100 years in the past. Though there was more than a quarter-century between them, there was no tangible difference in how the 1939 or the 1966 movie treated women or Native Americans. The 1986 version, however, moves things forward considerably.
Rather than spending the whole duration breaking down the hackneyed virgin/whore dynamic, as the first two outings do, in the Highwaymen version, Dallas and Mrs. Mallory bond quickly. Throughout, the men like and respect the women as an equal part of the gang. Kristofferson was almost two decades older than both Wayne and Cord when he played the Ringo Kid, but Ashley was just three years behind him. To have Ashley be as gravel-voiced and worldly-wise as Kristofferson makes their romance, already lovely, feel quietly revolutionary.
Also unlike its predecessors, the 1986 film uses the Native Americans as a threat in only the most glancingly structural sense, with Willie Nelson’s character repeatedly standing up for them (“I admire anyone that’ll fight for their survival against odds they know will overwhelm them in the end”) and acknowledging that the journey is taking place on stolen land. In a movie so laidback, this passionate defense is particularly, gratifyingly striking.
And that’s the thing about Westerns. While they take place within the same historical era, often using the same archetypes—or as we’ve seen this month, even the same stories!—the strength of the tried-and tested narratives is that they’re both sturdy and malleable enough to allow for a constant reinvention, a reappraisal of whose perspectives we should be foregrounding.
Next week: we’ll see another example of this perspective shift, with two takes on The Beguiled.
Chloe Walker is a writer based in the UK. You can read her work at Culturefly, the BFI, Podcast Review, and Paste.