Remakes: Stagecoach

We're starting a new series called Remakes which will highlight films that have been made more than once.  Sometimes the title is maintained, sometimes not.  Usually the original is by far the better film and occasionally the remake is surprisingly good. There have been times the remake becomes a musical where the original was not.  We'll see what we come up with.  Let's begin with Stagecoach.




The original Stagecoach was released in 1939 and is part of that glittering group of films that caused that year to be considered the best of them all.  The basic plot has been used over and over again... bring different people together and tell their individual stories while the group is generally in some sort of distress or peril. Here there are nine folks, most of them malcontents, crammed together in an eastbound stagecoach going from Tonto, Arizona Territory, to Lordsburg, New Mexico Territory, grumbling and sassy with one another as they steel themselves against an Indian attack.

The group includes two women, a prostitute who needed to get out of town, and a cavalry officer's pregnant wife on her way to join him. Also on board is a gambler and former Confederate, an embezzling banker, a whiskey salesman and an alcoholic and disgraced surgeon.  Sitting beside the driver is a U.S. marshal. Shortly after the coach begins its journey, an escaped outlaw is picked up on the trail.

Let the fun begin.  Of course, the thrust of the story is the unearthing of the passengers' true characters and features themes that include prejudices (social and sexual), alcoholism, shame, greed, revenge and redemption.

Stagecoach, of course, is famous for two Johns, both of whom had been around for some time but whose star-wattage increased considerably with the release of this film.  John Ford directed, his first western in 13 years and his first sound western, and he filmed it for the first time in what would become his favorite location, the majestic Monument Valley.

The second John, of course, is John Wayne, in the first of 14 pairings (mostly westerns) with Ford.  His introduction to the film on the dusty trail is memorable as the camera lingers on his lanky frame, ending in an in-your-face closeup, while he twirls his rifle in a grand, theatrical gesture.  As the outlaw Ringo Kid, he was young, handsome, cocky and sexy.  He had a long 10 years looking for the role that would put him over the top and this was it.

Top-billed is Claire Trevor as the prostitute. She played her usual used and abused, using and abusing tough-girl role. She and Wayne are paired against one another in a touch-and-go love match giving the film a decided boost in smart dialogue as they square off, sound off and make up.  Much credit goes to writer Dudley Nichols (a Ford regular) for his incisive dialogue.  The public became so enamored of Wayne and Trevor that they were paired again immediately in Allegheny Uprising (1939) and Dark Command (1940) and then fourteen years later in the all-star The High and the Mighty.  

Ford managed to corral a colorful supporting cast beginning with Oscar-winning Thomas Mitchell as the boozy doctor, John Carradine as the gambler, Andy Devine (and his comic relief) as the stage driver and Louise Platt as the wholesome, pregnant passenger, a far cry from Trevor's role.  George Bancroft is the marshal, Donald Meek the whiskey salesman and Burton Churchill is the banker. All, of course, don't make it to the end of the line.

Stagecoach has always been included among the most famous westerns.  If one mentions it, most people would think of Wayne and Ford and vice-versa.  It gathered seven Oscar nominations and won two.

That kind of acclaim could certainly not be accorded to the 1966 remake, also titled Stagecoach.  Like a lot of remakes, it would have been better not to have made it especially since it was in no way better than the original.  That said, I liked it in its B sort of way.

It is directed by Gordon Douglas who certainly knew his way around a western (The Great Missouri Raid, The Iron Mistress, The Charge at Feather River, The Big Land, Fort Dobbs, Yellowstone Kelly, Rio Conchos, all yummy B oaters) but he was no John Ford.

The characters remain the same and their dramas are essentially untouched, but Douglas wisely moved his caravan to Colorado mountain ranges, leaving Ford's Monument Valley to history.

If Ford's original has some mythic notions attached to it, Douglas has allowed his version to unfold as something more down-to-earth. Ford's movie in 1939 was in black and white, giving it the usual gritty realism for which the director was known. Douglas' 1966 look was, of course, filmed in glorious color, as one would certainly have expected at that time.

Overall I suppose I enjoyed Douglas' cast more but not the two leads.   Although I credit Alex Cord with looking and sounding like a cowboy, he clearly had some pretty big boots to fill as the Ringo Kid, and he didn't. Likewise, Ann-Margret.  She showed some promise in the year-earlier The Cincinatti Kid, but was still in her bad-actress period.  In her first western, she looks a bit out-of-place and acts like someone in 1966 instead of 18whatever.  She, too, looked like her part (gee, I mean that in the nicest possible way) but her sometimes gushing over-acting made me want to cover my eyes. Her best scenes were with Stefanie Powers as the pregnant wife.

The marshal is the central role in this version with an impressive turn by Van Heflin as a gruff authoritarian, a man at odds with the order of things.  Heflin, a wonderful actor, lifted every production he in which he appeared.  

Equally delightful is a dramatic Bing Crosby as the drunken doc.  I confess I cannot imagine what seduced him to take a such a role, in a western, no less, unless he was looking for work in general or specifically a dramatic part to shine his instrument. 

Bob Cummings, another unusual inhabitant of the old west, was properly smiley-smarmy as the embezzler, clutching his bag of stash like a schoolgirl holding her books.  Red Buttons, though dramatic as the rest, lends a bit of comedy as the whiskey salesman and Michael Connors looks dapper, if a little out of place, in his all-white suit in that dust and mayhem.  Slim Pickens is a worthy successor to Andy Devine as the driver. While never on the coach, Keenan Wynn waits in town, hoping to send one or two passengers to their Great Rewards.  

The remake suffered with the comparison to the original but I can't say I didn't enjoy it and I even watched it again last weekend on the tube.  I was in a cowboy frame of mind.

The basic story has been popular enough to have been done quite a number of times, especially in the western format.  It's not always called Stagecoach, of course, but the marauding Indians chasing a coach full of questionable characters are there.  The title and story was in place a third time for a film starring Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash.  I found it lacking.



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