Stagecoach (1939)

John Wayne did his first role with John Ford playing a wanted murderer trapped inside a Stagecoach with a bunch of eccentric people: a prostitute (with a golden heart - - ), a dandy, an alcoholic and a pregnant lady. The killer and the prostitute fall in love and Dream of escaping the entrapment of society to get a place of their own. Ford mixes action scenes with wistful romance - Stagecoach is in this sense what would become classic western. As in Rio bravo (which I saw a while back) the action is interspered between quieter moments, for example a saloon lady crooning a song. Wayne does the part of the manly man who knows how to charm the womenfolk, while still looking a little bit dangerous. He also knows how to handle dangerous situations, like being chased by indians while riding a stagecoach with a motley crew. The indians are portrayed as brutes riding around to get bloody retaliation. We never see them as persons, only as a hazardous band of savages posing a threat the the White man and, even more so, White woman. The film gets its grandour from the location-shot images of the prarie.