Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Stagecoach
Stagecoach took Westerns out of the realm of B movies and made them the most popular genre of
film in the country. Released in 1939 Stagecoach is the embodiment of pre World War II America, marking
the first of many collaborations between John Ford and John Wayne. Ford had previously made some
popular films, but had not yet made his name in sound Westerns, while Wayne had primarily been a “B”
actor up to this point. But this film started making Ford synonymous with, and Wayne the very
embodiment, of the genre. Stagecoach, which quickly became the template for all Westerns to follow, set
the stage for the rest of Ford’s work as well. It is, in its most basic form, the story of a group of people
traveling together in a stagecoach across the American West. Passengers include a prostitute, a military
man’s wife, a banker, a gambler, and a variety of other characters that set out together from the town of
Tonto. John Wayne plays the role of the Ringo Kid, a young man recently escaped from jail, who is
arrested along the way and joins the travelers on the journey. The passengers come from various
backgrounds and will face internal class struggles along the way, but are all united by a common external
threat of Geronimo on their voyage to the town of Lordsburg.
John Wayne as the Ringo Kid represents the rugged individual. He is the ultimate template for the
American cowboy, and therefore the ultimate portrayal of the way America viewed itself during the prewar
years. Wayne was the definition of the heroic individual, necessary and integral to the success of society.
During this time America remembered Westward expansion as its defining national moment, drawing the
link between the earliest pilgrims, then colonists, and finally the Western settlers. This idea of the
individual exploring unknown territory and making it safe for civilization to grow is the way Americans
defined themselves. Americans went out and “made the world safe for democracy”, and stood as a united
front to “civilize” the unknown. Through Stagecoach Wayne created the myth of the individual that he
portrays in nearly all his roles from this point on, but, the reception that his rugged individualism invokes
shifts drastically over time.
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