Stagecoach -The Criterion Collection- -Blu-ray-

Product Description This is where it all started. John Fords smash hit and enduring masterpiece STAGECOACH revolutionized the western, elevating it from B movie to the A-list. The quintessential tale of a group of strangers thrown together into extraordinary circumstancestraveling a dangerous route from Arizona to New MexicoSTAGECOACH features outstanding performances from Hollywood stalwarts Claire Trevor, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell, and, of course, John Wayne, in his first starring role for Ford, as the daredevil outlaw the Ringo Kid. Superbly shot and tightly edited, STAGECOACH (Fords first trip to Monument Valley) is Hollywood storytelling at its finest. Additional Features Stagecoach is the Platonic ideal of what a movie should be and do, and Criterion's DVD and Blu-ray release showcases its virtues with love and care. That begins with the digital restoration of a landmark film most of us have seen only via substandard prints and videos. Transferred from a 1942 nitrate dupe negative, the new disc restores director John Ford and cameraman Bert Glennon's images to their proper richness, clarity, and depth. The results aren't pristine--dirt and damage remain visible at times, noticeably during the opening credits--but mostly it's as though a cloud had lifted with the first break of sun over Monument Valley. Excellent feature-length audio commentary is supplied by film scholar Jim Kitses ( Horizons West), who right up front challenges the notion that Stagecoach lacks the nuance and complexity of later Ford masterworks. He also regrets that the picture is now known primarily as the vehicle that made John Wayne an A-list star. It did that (and Kitses means no disrespect to the Duke!), but more essentially it's a triumph of the ensemble film, in which every character and performance is carefully developed and even more artfully enlarged by interplay with the others. Kitses also fervently contends that the film's protagonist is not Wayne's Ringo Kid but Dallas, the prostitute played by Claire Trevor. (Ford told Trevor that her performance was so good, so fully woven into the texture of the film, she wouldn't receive the credit she deserved. He was right.) Two devout Fordians make personal contributions to the Criterion disk: Peter Bogdanovich with amusing character portraits of Ford and John Wayne, and Tag Gallagher with a video essay, "Dreaming of