Stagecoach story
Stagecoach is a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne. The screenplay by Dudley Nichols is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox. The film follows a group primarily composed of strangers riding on a stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory. The film has long been recognized as an important work that transcends the Western genre. In 1995, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. Still, Stagecoach has not avoided controversy. Like most Westerns of the era, its depiction of Native Americans as simplistic savages has been criticized.
15 total · 1 choice · 10 major · 4 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| life in the American Wild West | choice | The story is set in Arizona and New Mexico, June 1880. A drunken physician, a whisky peddler, a crooked banker, an outlaw, a prostitute, a snobbish belle, among others traveled together in a stagecoach through hostile Apache territory. |
| alcohol abuse | major | Doc Boone was a unabashed drunkard. He was delighted to find himself traveling together with a whiskey peddler who had a case full of samples. |
| being on the run from the law | major | The Ringo Kid had broken out of prison and was on the run from the law. |
| embezzlement | major | Upon reaching Lordsburg, Henry Gatewood was summarily arrested for leaving the town of Tonto with his bank's funds. This explained why he was so determined to leave Tonto, despite the high risk of encountering hostile Apache warriors. |
| getting along together in a confined space for an extended period | major | A drunken physician, a whisky peddler, a crooked banker, an outlaw, a prostitute, a snobbish belle, among others traveled together in a stagecoach through hostile Apache territory. The quarreled in various ways. |
| human vs. human | major | The latter part of the story concerns the stagecoach travelers' attempt to evade, then outrun or fight off, stereotypically belligerent Apache Indians. |
| infatuation | major | Dallas and the Ringo Kid became besotted with each other and were probably on path to be married at the end. |
| law enforcement | major | Marshall Wilcox placed the Ringo Kid under arrest and kept an eye on him for the duration of the trip. The Lordsburg sheriff arrested Henry Gatewood. |
| medical occupation | major | Doc Boone was, despite his raging alcoholism, an accomplished physician. |
| prejudice against someone of a different social class | major | Doc Boone cited social prejudice as the reason that he was being run out of town. One gathers, however, that the Ladies of the Law and Order League wanted him gone because he was a drunk. The snobbish belle Lucy spent the majority of the trip looking down her nose at Dallas, who was a prostitute. |