CREDITS STAGECOACH , 1939 dir: John Ford John Wayne Claire Trevor Thomas Mitchell

John Ford’s classic Western is based on a short story, Stage to Lordsburg, by Ernest Haycox, published in Collier’s Magazine in 1937, in turn, based on Guy de Maupassant’s Boule de Suif, set during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.

Wisely, John Wayne’s character name was changed from Malpais Bill to the Ringo Kid.

The film established Monument Valley, on the Arizona-Utah border, as an icon of the American West, although, of the passengers, only John Wayne actually trekked out to Utah. None of the principals made it past California’s San Fernando Valley.

Monument Valley, an area of striking, flat-topped mesas and buttes, was a tough location in 1938, at the end of a 200-mile dirt road from Flagstaff, Arizona. The Navajo, already troubled by disease and unemployment, were employed to play Apaches – one of the many nations they were to play over the years. The Valley is not a National Park, as you might expect, but a Tribal Park still belonging to, and managed by, the Navajo nation.

But the Valley is only a part of Stagecoach. The river crossing is the Kern River, near to Kernville, 40 miles east of Bakersfield, California. The old wagon cut at Newhall, on I-5 – also called Fremont Pass – is the entrance to the dry lake.

Nearby Chatsworth and Calabasas also provided locations. The chase by Indians was staged at Lucerne Dry Lake near Victorville, California, recreated by stunt artist Yakima Canutt from the 1937 Monogram movie Riders of the Dawn, which was filmed at the same location.

To soften the ground for filming, 20 acres of ground had to be dug up by tractor. The real journey of the movie, though, is from the Western Street at Republic Studios (the town of ‘Tonto’) to the Goldwyn Studios (‘Lordsburg’), where the interiors were filmed.