Stagecoach is a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford, starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne in his breakthrough role. The screenplay, written by Dudley Nichols and Ben Hecht, is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox. The film follows a group of strangers riding on a stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory. Although Ford had made many Westerns in the silent film era, he had never previously directed a sound Western. Between 1929 and 1939, he directed films in almost every other genre, including Wee Willie Winkie , starring Shirley... Temple. Stagecoach was the first of many Westerns that Ford shot using Monument Valley, in the American Southwest on the Arizona-Utah border, as a location, many of which also starred John Wayne. In Stagecoach the director skillfully blended shots of Monument Valley with shots filmed at Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, and other locations. In 1880, a motley group of strangers boards the east-bound stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona Territory to Lordsburg, New Mexico Territory.
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| Release date: | February 15, 1939 |
| Directed by: | John Ford |
| Runtime: | 96 Minutes |
| Producer: | John Ford |
| Editor: | Walter Reynolds, Dorothy Spencer, Otho Lovering |
| Music by: | Gerard Carbonara |
| Cinematography: | Bert Glennon |
| Screenplay by: | Dudley Nichols, Ben Hecht |
| Genre: | Western |