tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post5438207900976572927..comments2023-11-17T11:08:31.857-06:00Comments on Michael May: Stagecoach (1939)Michael Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514945570212261283noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-75089555448548181312010-06-02T11:41:51.184-05:002010-06-02T11:41:51.184-05:00Cool! I'm hoping to find time to at least star...Cool! I'm hoping to find time to at least start the '60s remake this afternoon.Michael Mayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12514945570212261283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-88747730179136606052010-06-02T11:14:54.669-05:002010-06-02T11:14:54.669-05:00Four out of five hookers-with-a-heart-of-gold.
H...<i>Four out of five hookers-with-a-heart-of-gold. </i><br /><br />Ha! I love it. Those are the best kinds, after all. <br /><br />I've had "Stagecoach" on my to-watch list for awhile, but your review has me moving it up that list.Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-80607989986002791912010-05-25T13:44:16.477-05:002010-05-25T13:44:16.477-05:00I'm definitely looking forward to your views o...I'm definitely looking forward to your views on those other movies. Fort Apache is definitely one of my all-time favourites, a quintessential John Ford film.Menshevikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112873248418375924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-43608207822836055712010-05-25T09:20:26.257-05:002010-05-25T09:20:26.257-05:00Menshevik: I'd forgotten all about that bullet...Menshevik: I'd forgotten all about that bullet-in-the-back comment, but that certainly added to my overall impression of Hatfield. I was certain that Boone was talking about him. Your pulling out all these nuances makes me want to watch the movie again sooner rather than later.<br /><br />Ken: Welcome! After Stagecoach, I'll be watching some more John Wayne. The Searchers is already a favorite, but I still need to see Fort Apache and some of the other big ones.Michael Mayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12514945570212261283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-56376674025368648532010-05-25T09:19:42.815-05:002010-05-25T09:19:42.815-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Michael Mayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12514945570212261283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-53743091510601690112010-05-25T08:08:31.049-05:002010-05-25T08:08:31.049-05:00Awesome write up. Wayne was my Grandfather's ...Awesome write up. Wayne was my Grandfather's cowboy too. I actually lived with my Grandfather for a few years, so I spent hours watching them with him. So while I've seen all the Eastwood films and love most of them, I guess Wayne is my cowboy too. <br /><br />I never trusted Hatfield either. He just came off too smarmy.<br /><br />The TCM marathon was good. I'd have rather it ended with She Wore Yellow Ribbon instead of Fort Apache, but that is just because I love Ben Johnson's role it in.Ken Onoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-7691495313036833942010-05-25T07:31:35.693-05:002010-05-25T07:31:35.693-05:00Glad to be of service. I suspect that John Carradi...Glad to be of service. I suspect that John Carradine was cast deliberately to highlight the inherent duality of Hatfield's character. On one hand he embodies a romantic ideal of chivalry, yet at the same time "Stagecoach" calls this ideal of a bygone age into question because it is preconditioned on privilege and the idea that gentlemen and ladies are better than the likes of Dallas and Ringo (Doc Boone pointing out that he once extracted the bullet from a man shot in the back by a gentleman, this nearly leading to a fight with the accusation hanging in the air that that gentleman may have been Hatfield himself or one of his friends, with Ringo saying placatingly "he didn't name names") and this ideal almost costing Mrs. Mallory her life. But still Hatfield is a character with great redeeming qualities and an ability to learn (vide the change of his attitude towards Doc Boone) and so he is given a good death scene, while the more "modern" member of the upper class, Gatewood the capitalist, has no sympathetic qualities at all.Menshevikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112873248418375924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-66155433768393873752010-05-24T23:20:01.819-05:002010-05-24T23:20:01.819-05:00Thanks for that history. That's what I suspect...Thanks for that history. That's what I suspected and it's nice to hear it confirmed.Michael Mayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12514945570212261283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-72514939664456436222010-05-24T23:16:48.383-05:002010-05-24T23:16:48.383-05:00A quick thought on the depiction of pregnancy: the...A quick thought on the depiction of pregnancy: the Hays Code (a.k.a. the Production Code) had been enacted only a few years before Stagecoach, and while I don't think the Code explicitly forbid such depictions, it did have such a chilling effect on the industry that I could see filmmakers going out of their way to avoid offending anyone on any grounds. That might have included showing a "baby bump." Films of the time certainly avoided the word "pregnant," always referring to a woman's "condition" or various euphemisms (bun in the oven, sitting on the nest, etc.)<br /><br />Honestly, the first on-screen pregnant woman I can think of was Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy, in the 1950s.jasonhttp://www.jasonbennion.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-46228840185518892972010-05-24T15:28:28.158-05:002010-05-24T15:28:28.158-05:00Wow, thank you so much for all the extra details, ...Wow, thank you so much for all the extra details, especially about Hatfield. As I wrote my review, I started to suspect that my typecasting of Carradine was responsible for my mistrusting him, but by then I'd already deleted the movie from my TiVo queue and couldn't go back to check. I obviously need to buy it now so I can watch it again, paying closer attention to Hatfield and the comments about Mrs. Mallory's "condition."<br /><br />Thanks again for the awesome and helpful comments!Michael Mayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12514945570212261283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-76104183556988257342010-05-24T12:51:49.896-05:002010-05-24T12:51:49.896-05:00Another thing: The Western movie genre had been de...Another thing: The Western movie genre had been declared dead for some years before the release of "Stagecoach", but then it was back. It is such a seminal film that a lot of things in it were imitated so often that they becam clichés themselves, but back in 1939 it actually broke with a lot of genre conventions by making a prostitute the heroine and in the way that on the whole the "respectable" characters (the bank director, the officer's wife, the Southern gentleman fallen on hard times) are painted more negatively than the "disreputable" one (the violent outlaw, the woman of easy virtue, the souse). Thomas Mitchell, who played Doc Boone, also played Scarlett O'Hara's father in "Gone With the Wind" that year - didn't he win an Oscar for one of these two parts?Menshevikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112873248418375924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7857882.post-27051981986094862012010-05-24T12:35:19.009-05:002010-05-24T12:35:19.009-05:00It's been a while since I last saw this movie,...It's been a while since I last saw this movie, but if I remember correctly Hatfield had served in a regiment commanded by Mrs. Mallory's father during the Civil War and his family and hers apparently formed part of the high society of whatever region they were both from (somewhere in Virginia?) and although she did not know him personally, she knew his kin. The character is of a type John Ford used in a few of his Westerns (another is the sergeant, former Confederate officer, played by Pedro Armendariz in "Fort Apache"), a Southern gentleman fallen on hard times, who moved to the West and now makes his living below his former station, and will sometimes even take an assumed name to protect the family honour. (I'm not quite sure if Hatfield was the real name of the character or if he revealed a different one when he told Mrs. Mallory to go to his father when he died). And by the code of a Southern gentleman, he felt duty-bound to offer a real lady his service and protection, even if it might result in his own death (which is foreshadowed by him drawing the ace of spades just before he decides to board the stagecoach). His code also requires him to save his last bullet for Mrs. Mallory during the final chase, and I have a feeling that the irony that Mrs. Mallory's life is accidentally saved by the Apaches (when Hatfield is killed by an Apache bullet before he gets to "save her from a fate worse than death") was deliberate.<br /><br />Now that you bring it up, I suppose it probably was seen as problematic to show a prominent belly bulge, OTOH in real life not all pregnant women have that obvious a bulge and may choose to disguise it by the way they dress. But the pregnancy was referred to obliquely (as befitted the era the film is set in) by the townswomen who accompany Lucy Mallory to the stagecoach and worry if she should be travelling in her condition. (She replies that there's a doctor on board).<br /><br />You don't see much of the Apache, but that makes sense from a storytelling POV as it is not their story (we also don't learn anything much about the Plummers' life story and motivation, for instance). And IMO it really works a lot better, building up the suspense with an offscreen menace, when the Geronimo and his warriors are not even seen before the big chase scene, so there really was no time to show much.<br /><br />Other things worth mentioning about "Stagecoach": Yakima Cannutt (here John Wayne's stunt double) leaping from horse to horse, and the magnificent setting in Monument Valley (soon to be known as John Ford country because Ford would return there again and again). IIRC it was one of the first Westerns to be shot on location instead of studio sets, and it helped to improve the economic situation of the local Navajo a little...Menshevikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112873248418375924noreply@blogger.com