Stagecoach

John Ford, 1939: a stagecoach from Tonto to Lordsburg, and everyone on it is a type until the ride makes them people. Claire Trevor is the prostitute; John Wayne, after a decade of B westerns, is the Ringo Kid. Dudley Nichols from a story by Ernest Haycox; Yakima Canutt on the stunts; Monument Valley for the first time as Ford's West. United Artists. It is the film that taught the A picture what a western could hold — a baby, a banker, a drunk doctor, an Apache attack, a last street. Wayne walks into the frame and does not leave.