Three "Stagecoachs": 1939, 1966, 1986

Spinning the dial, I came across this 1986 TV movie, a bit of a "gimmick done right." Intriguing.

"Stagecoach" of 1986 into was the "Made for TV movie" as it had evolved from the 70's(when the things looked rather flat and cheapjack) to the 80's(when they looked well-lit and professional, but were still "lacking something" -- budget and production time, mainly.)

"Stagecoach" is most famously a rather Spartan John Ford classic of 1939, which made John Wayne a star about 100 B-movies into his career. Wayne as The Ringo Kid was one of nine characters put into that stagecoach -- though he shows up "on the road" after the coach has been on its journey for some time.

Here are the characters:

The stagecoach driver (Andy Devine)
The lawman (George Bancroft)
The hooker(Claire Trevor)
The drunken doctor (Thomas Mitchell)
The liquor salesman(Donald Meek...who LOOKED Meek)
The pregnant Cavalryman's wife (Louise Platt)
The courtly gambler(John Carradine) who looks after the pregnant wife
The banker who has his stolen bank funds in a satchel(Berton Churchwell)
The Ringo Kid(John Wayne)...wrongly accused of murder, and a jailbreak

Me, personally, I commit the sacrilege of liking BETTER the "Cinemascope and Technicolor" 1966 remake, directed by Gordon Douglas(Them, Rio Conchos) and with a rousing Western score by Jerry Goldsmith. The sixties roster;

The stagecoach driver(Slim Pickens)
The lawman(Van Heflin)
The hooker(Ann-Margret)
The drunken doctor (Bing Crosby)
The liquor salesman(Red Buttons)
The pregnant cavalryman's wife(Stefanie Powers)
The courtly gambler(Mike "Mannix" Connors)
The banker who has stolen bank funds (Bob "Saboteur" Cummings)
The Ringo Kid (Alex Cord)

That sixties cast was perhaps a bit more "starry"(less Alex Cord in for Wayne) and the movie itself was big on action, with what had been a brief and minor final showdown in 1939 converted into a big shootout and saloon on fire in 1966.

Interesting: The remake of Stagecoach came out in 1966, but the intense and star-driven "semi-Stagecoach remake"...the redoubtable "Hombre," came out in 1967..and I'm here to tell you: they are rather confusingly cross-matched, to me.

For instance, BOTH stories feature a "fine upstanding citizen" who has a satchel of stolen money -- its Bob Cummings banker in Stagecoach, Fredric March's Indian agent in Hombre. BOTH films have a stagecoach driver -- its Slim Pickens in Stagecoach, Martin Balsam(as "Mendez") in Hombre. And the prim pregnant woman (Stefanie Powers) in Stagecoach is rather matched by the prim society lady(Barbara Rush) in Hombre.

I've mentioned before that I'm a sucker for movies about a "disparate group of people whose stories interconnect" and hell, that's everything from Stagecoach to Grand Hotel to Separate Tables to The Towering Inferno to Love Actually, ain't it? This format is especially delicious when some good stars are hired to play the parts, and when cool character hook-ups are made: for instance, drunken doctor Bing Crosby is out to protect liquor salesman Red Buttons' suitcase full of booze at all costs.

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All of this was background to the 1986 Stagecoach, where the nine break out this way:

Stagecoach driver: John Schneider(The Dukes of Hazard)
The lawman: Johnny Cash
The hooker: Elizabeth Ashley
The drunken doctor: Willie Nelson
The liquor salesman: Anthony Newley
The pregnant cavalryman's wife: Mary Crosby(Bing's daughter; she shot JR)
The courtly gambler(Waylon Jennings)
The banker who has stolen bank funds(Anthony Franciosa)
The Ringo Kid(Kris Kristoferson)

An interesting cast, and the "gimmick" is that four of them are "country singers" of different stripes: Johnny Cash(a true giant, and June Carter Cash is in this too), Willie Nelson(a near-giant), Waylon Jennings(pretty good) and Kris Kristofferson(not 10 years earlier a "Major Movie Star" in A Star is Born.)

These four guys had done a hit single called "The Highwaymen" and assembled themselves as a kind of "Magnificent Four" of country music in the 80's..and sticking them into "Stagecoach" was a pretty nifty way to exploit "The Highwaymen."

The movie is pretty good in the acting and dialogue. Cash has great presence; Nelson's quick-and-fast line reading is sublime. Waylon Jennings acquits himself and the handsome Kristofferson has a little fun playing "The Ringo Kid" -- he KNOWS he's too old to be playing "The Kid", and so the hooker-romance is cast with the sexy but aging Elizabeth Ashley. Its a good match.

I was intrigued to feel the 'Hombre" connection strongly: in THIS one, Geronimo's Indians will attack the stagecoach, but Willie Nelson will make the "Hombre" argument that the Indians had their land taken from them and are only "trying to fight back against impossible odds." But that doesn't stop Willie from shooting them when they ride after the stagecoach.

The story has been rearranged to favor "The Highwaymen." In the first two "Stagecoachs," the gambler gets killed trying to protect the pregnant wife. In THIS version, the gambler is Waylon Jennings, and he lives to take a "Gunfight at OK Corral" walk with Cash, Nelson, and Kristofferson to face the Luke Plummer gang at film's end. (The banker, who survives the first movie and is killed by Plummers gang in the second one, gets the gambler's death in this THIRD movie.)

Somewhat intriguingly, this third Stagecoach has the liquor salesman -- Anthony Newley and anybody remember THAT handsome British crooner? -- leave the group early to avoid Indian attack(thus eliminating the drunk doctor/liquor salesman gag) and turns Willie Nelson into...ta da!...the infamous Doc Holliday, thus allowing Willie to join the illustrious ranks of Victor Mature(for John Ford), Kirk Douglas, Jason Robards, Dennis Quaid and especialy Val Kilmer in that most "foolproof of Western roles."

Special mention: Anthony Franciosa. The "crooked banker" here. One of my favorite TV actors of the 60's and 70's, Franciosa had a great voice and an ultra-suave manner. He made a few feature films. In Rio Conchos(1964), watching Franciosa trade lines with his "pal" Richard Boone, was sublime...and he's just fine, if wasted, here in Stagecoach '86. Hollywood is filled at all times with good charismatic actors who simply don't become big stars.

Where "Stagecoach 1986" falls down is in trying to match the great Indians-chase-the-stagecoach sequence that was enthralling in 1939 but somewhat dated now, and big-action in 1966. They just don't have the budget in this one to do it right(though Cash does a fair amount of his own stuntwork between the horses.) The showdown finale is closer to the minimal 1939 version than the big-action 1966 one.

So: I still like the 1966 "Stagecoach" best. But darned if the chance to see Cash, Nelson, Jennings, and Kristofferson all together (with Tony Franciosa and Anthony Newley in support) didn't move this one to second best.

As for John Ford's 1939 original: Well, I KNOW its the classic, but...I know what I like.