The passengers who board the stagecoach, in the town called Tonto, are well defined. There is the whiskey drummer named, Samuel Peacock, who's submissive character lives up to his actor's surname, Donald "Meek". Gatewood the banker. Arrogant and anxious; the supposed pillar of of any community and running out with a valise full of the bank's funds. Hatfield, the so-called gentleman gambler. A possible southern aristocrat, who's probably fallen on hard times as a result of the civil war. Lucy Mallory, the pregnant wife of a cavalry officer, who is joining him at his frontier outpost. We have the likable, drunken doctor, Josiah Boone. Dallas the scarlet woman, the good bad girl who worked in the Tonto saloon, driven out of town along with the whiskey-sodden Doc Boone by the hatchet-faced sourpuss old matrons of Tonto. The stage driver is excitable and squeaky-voiced, Buck. The man riding shotgun is Sheriff Curly Wilcox.
On the first leg of the journey to Lordsburg the Ringo Kid, recently busted out of jail, flags down the stage. Curly Wilcox orders Ringo to hand over his Winchester rifle. Ringo tells the sheriff that he may need him to help to fight off Geronimo's Apaches who are on the warpath. Ringo is determined to get to Lordsburg to hunt down and kill the Plummer boys who killed his family.
The stage stops at a way station for the passengers to rest and eat. At the next stop, Mrs Mallory gives birth. The now sobered up Doc Boone and Dallas deliver the baby, and the softer side of Dallas surfaces as a result. She tries to get Ringo to make a run for it but he's determined to get the Plummer boys.
On the final leg of the journey the stage is attacked by an Apache war party and is saved by the timely arrival of a troop of cavalry. Back in nineteenth century frontier reality Sheriff Wilcox and Ringo would probably have shot and brought down the Apache ponies instead of the riders. Blunting the attack at the beginning of the chase. Likewise, the Apaches could possibly have shot down the lead horses in the coach team. But on the big twentieth century silver screen the tension and excitement would have been blunted for the moviegoers!
In Lordsburg Ringo finally catches up and kills the Plummers. He shoots Hank Plummer, played by Tom Tyler, in the street. Hank then crashes through the bat wing doors and into the saloon, and staggers to his death like a drunken man. Tom Tyler would repeat a similar drunken-like performance when in his death throes seven years later as the gunman, Lafe McWilliams, when Errol Flynn kills him off in "San Antonio".
Critics have rated this a classic. It may well be; but his later westerns, like the never-to-be-forgotten, "The Searchers", are miles ahead in perfection. Ford raised the western genre from its Ken Maynard, Charles Starrett, and Buck Jones, 1930's "B" picture existence to a well deserved prominence. He took liberties with frontier history. Then who didn't? He did frontier history a favour by painting the harsh and cruel loneliness of human existence in the new republic, in a poetic manner and on the broad canvas of Monument Valley. It has won him plaudits ever since. And how well deserved they are, too.
On the first leg of the journey to Lordsburg the Ringo Kid, recently busted out of jail, flags down the stage. Curly Wilcox orders Ringo to hand over his Winchester rifle. Ringo tells the sheriff that he may need him to help to fight off Geronimo's Apaches who are on the warpath. Ringo is determined to get to Lordsburg to hunt down and kill the Plummer boys who killed his family.
The stage stops at a way station for the passengers to rest and eat. At the next stop, Mrs Mallory gives birth. The now sobered up Doc Boone and Dallas deliver the baby, and the softer side of Dallas surfaces as a result. She tries to get Ringo to make a run for it but he's determined to get the Plummer boys.
On the final leg of the journey the stage is attacked by an Apache war party and is saved by the timely arrival of a troop of cavalry. Back in nineteenth century frontier reality Sheriff Wilcox and Ringo would probably have shot and brought down the Apache ponies instead of the riders. Blunting the attack at the beginning of the chase. Likewise, the Apaches could possibly have shot down the lead horses in the coach team. But on the big twentieth century silver screen the tension and excitement would have been blunted for the moviegoers!
In Lordsburg Ringo finally catches up and kills the Plummers. He shoots Hank Plummer, played by Tom Tyler, in the street. Hank then crashes through the bat wing doors and into the saloon, and staggers to his death like a drunken man. Tom Tyler would repeat a similar drunken-like performance when in his death throes seven years later as the gunman, Lafe McWilliams, when Errol Flynn kills him off in "San Antonio".
Critics have rated this a classic. It may well be; but his later westerns, like the never-to-be-forgotten, "The Searchers", are miles ahead in perfection. Ford raised the western genre from its Ken Maynard, Charles Starrett, and Buck Jones, 1930's "B" picture existence to a well deserved prominence. He took liberties with frontier history. Then who didn't? He did frontier history a favour by painting the harsh and cruel loneliness of human existence in the new republic, in a poetic manner and on the broad canvas of Monument Valley. It has won him plaudits ever since. And how well deserved they are, too.