most active between 1881 and 1886 in their encoun-
ters with the U. S. Army, we can locate the action
sometime in this period. Haycox’s story provides a
basic plot and characters, but Ford and Nichols
recognized in it the basis for a new kind of Holly-
wood Western, and made many alterations. They
retained most characters, but added two new ones
(Doc Boone and Gatewood) and changed all their
names. Significantly, while Haycox had the Ringo
character board the stagecoach with everyone else
in Tonto, Nichols made him an escaped prisoner,
thus strengthening the group of outcasts and con-
tributing to the class consciousness that is at the
heart of the story. Catering to the audience’s expec-
tations, Ford provides a spectacular Indian fight,
but its true strength lies not only in its magnificent
imagery, but also in the screenplay’s sharp psycho-
logical portraits of vivid characters and pointed
social commentary. At the end of the movie, we
expect that Ringo, having gotten his revenge, will
return to jail to complete his sentence. And we
know that, after his release, Ringo and Dallas plan
to be married and live on his ranch across the bor-
der. Nichols made a significant addition to the story
by giving it a happy ending—the couple escape into
the night—and having Doc Boone utter the movie’s
cynical last words: “Well, they’re saved from the
blessings of civilization.”
Narration and Narrator
As was typical of John Ford’s style throughout his
career, he relies on visual images and dialogue, not
a narrator, to tell the Stagecoachstory. His narration
is provided by an omniscient camera that sees and
knows everything and can tell us whatever it wants
us to know. You see this, for example, in the exterior
shots of Geronimo on the hill, Gatewood robbing his
own safe, the stagecoach racing across the territory,
and the Luke Plummer scene. This camera has
unrestricted access to all aspects of the narrative
and, as a result, can provide the experiences and
perceptions of any character, as well as information
that no character knows. You see this in the medium
and close-up shots of characters under stress.
Ford’s camera shows the audience whatever it
needs to in order to best tell the story. Although the
movie uses neither narrator nor interior mono-
logue, it features one especially interesting use of an
auditory point of view when Lucy, a cavalry wife, is
the first to recognize the bugle announcing the cav-
alry’s impending arrival during the Apache attack.
The situation is dire. She is praying, and Hatfield,
who intends to shoot her so that she won’t be cap-
tured by the Apaches, has pointed his revolver at
her head. Just before he can pull the trigger, he is
struck by an Apache bullet. Hearing the bugle at
that moment, her face reacts with great emotion as
she says, “Do you hear it? It’s a bugle. They’re blow-
ing the charge.” With a cut to the cavalry riding
to save the stagecoach, the movie reaches its turn-
ing point. This powerful moment manipulates our
expectations (we believe that Hatfield will per-
form the mercy killing), conventions of the West-
ern genre (we would expect the Cavalry to(^6) Both the story and the screenplay are in Dudley Nichols,
Stagecoach: A Film by John Ford and Dudley Nichols(New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1971). See also Edward Buscombe’s excel-
lent analysis of the film in Stagecoach(London: British Film
Institute, 1992), to which I am indebted.
Auditory point of view as narration in Stagecoach
Upon hearing the cavalry bugle and knowing that help is
near, Lucy reacts with great emotion. This is a key turning
point in the journey from Tonto to Lordsburg, and the arrival
of the Cavalry means—or at least the members of the
stagecoach party hope it means—that the travelers will end
their journey safely.
LOOKING AT NARRATIVE: JOHN FORD’S STAGECOACH 159