By Lee Pfeiffer
John Ford's 1939 classic Stagecoach finally gets the inimitable deluxe release from Criterion. The film's merits should be obvious to viewers of any generation, as it remains a wonderfully entertaining adventure. However, what has probably been diminished to many movie fans over the decades is the impact Stagecoach had on the Western movie genre. With this film, Ford had elevated the Western from the realm of B matinee productions by providing a highly intelligent, superbly written scenario designed to appeal to adults rather than the traditional core audience for Westerns, which was primarily children. In reality, there had been several attempts to elevate the Western to a higher plain prior to Stagecoach - primarily Raoul Walsh's 1930 epic The Big Trail. However, that film required theaters in invest in expensive widescreen projection equipment - something they were loathe to do during the Depression. Thus, the movie lost a fortune and relegated its star, John Wayne, back to B movie hell. Ford rescued Wayne by bucking studio executives who wanted a more prestigious star for Stagecoach. The rest, as they say, is history.