STAGECOACH

Welford Beaton

One of the greatest of all Westerns. And one of the most interesting Hollywood possibly could have for study. It is superb entertainment, but take it apart and we discover all the story it has could be told comfortably between the two ends of one reel of film. That interests me because one of the beliefs the Spectator has expressed at intervals during the past decade is that the story is not the thing of most importance to screen entertainment, that what really matters is the manner of telling what story there is – that it is the medium that entertains. Film producers as a whole know too little about their medium to give them confidence to test a theory. Walter Wanger apparently is an exception. Stagecoach is evidence of his willingness to put to a test the theory that the medium, not the story, is the thing. He takes us with a stagecoach on a trip across a stretch of Western territory at a time when prowling Indians made it perilous. After one brush with the Redskins, the coach gets through; at the destination one of the passengers kills the three desperadoes who had killed his father and brother. There youhave all the story there is. And for one hour and thirty-three minutes it is gripping entertainment. It is a Grand Hotel on wheels.