Like most people, I find the name John Ford to be synonymous with Westerns. Knowing this, I was very surprised to discover that prior to Stagecoach, Ford had not directed a Western in over ten years. Having spent the previous decade making serious pictures like The Informer (for which he won his first of four Best Director Oscars) as well as the Shirley Temple vehicle Wee Willie Winkie, Stagecoach was his conscious attempt to legitimize his beloved genre by grafting some more "important" themes on to it. Though this film might seem quaint today, the decision to villainize the "upstanding " members of society and to glorify two outcasts as our heroes was revolutionary. Over the decades this impetus to make Westerns "about something" would further mature and lead to the magnum opus that is The Searchers. But it all began here. The fact that Orson Welles screened this film countless times while prepping Citizen Kane is not a fluke. It's that good!
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