Watched "Stagecoach" with John Wayne today, and saw...

[Trailrider]

the character played, I believe, by John Carradine (the "Major"), when the Indians were about to overwhelm the coach, open his pistol to rotate the last round into position so that when he cocked it, it would be under the hammer.  His intent was to "save the lady from a fate worse than death!"  Fortunately the cavalry arrived in the nick of time.  And the major got shot before he could pull the trigger.  The pistol was a S&W #2, top break, .32 rimfire! Don't see those much in movies!

[Hill Beachy]

Yes indeed, one of my favorite JW movies!  Although it's been awhile since I watched it, I seem to remember that it was a tip-up model, not a top-break.  Still a classic scene and a sterling example of how to make a movie -- no digital special effects, gore, sex, or profanity.  Instead they had actors who ACT, a plot, and great camera work that makes your imagination figure things out instead of being spoon-fed to the dumbed-down masses.

Great flick!

[Major 2]

A Classic.....

but did you happen to see the Willy Nelson , Kris Kristoferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash "THING" by the same name ? 

Willy as Doc Holiday ?  He was much better cast as Barbraosa.

[Texas Lawdog]

There was another remake in the 70s with Bing Crosby playing the drunk doctor.

[piebiter]

I agree that was truly a great scene with Carradine. I also watche some of the "Outlaws" version of Stagecoach later on Hallmark...boy what a difference in directing and acting. Remakes of classics usually fall on their faces.

[Coal Creek Griff]

The gun is, in fact, a tip-up revolver.

I haven't seen the other versions of Stagecoach; I'm too big a fan of the original.  I just don't think I could handle the other ones...

Coal Creek

[Hill Beachy]

I agree that was truly a great scene with Carradine.

Precisely!  If that scene was filmed today, we'd likely see the bullet leave the barrel of the hostile's rifle, travel so-mo thru the air, hit Carradine "Hatfield" with a great splashing of bood and gore, and then a few expletives before he died. 

But Ford knew how to film it, with the action off-screen.  The audience saw just the hand as it went limp and the revolver slipped from its grasp, and your mind knew what had occurred.

Oh, and did I mention a great musical score too?

[Cyrille]

John Ford and John Wayne one of the great pairings in cinema history and argrueibly the greatest in western genre cinema history.

[Delmonico]

Most folks don't pay much ateention to the best scene in the movie.  The great Yakima Cannutt dressed as an Indian and being shot off the horse and goes under the stage.  My understanding the two who tried it in the remakes got hurt bad, un like Yakima.

[Coal Creek Griff]

By the way, Yak also speaks the first lines in the film--as a scout warning of the Apache outbreak.  Yak was an amazing stuntman.  He paired regularly with Wayne and co-stars in many of Wayne's B-westerns prior to Stagecoach.  He was also a leading man in the silent era.  His rather wooden delivery didn't transition well to sound movies, but he more than made up for it with his stunt work.

Coal Creek

[Texas Lawdog]

Del, I was thinkin' that one of those stuntmen did get killed during the filming.

[Delmonico]

By the way, Yak also speaks the first lines in the film--as a scout warning of the Apache outbreak.  Yak was an amazing stuntman.  He paired regularly with Wayne and co-stars in many of Wayne's B-westerns prior to Stagecoach.  He was also a leading man in the silent era.  His rather wooden delivery didn't transition well to sound movies, but he more than made up for it with his stunt work.

Coal Creek

He also built the big loop on the Winchester Wayne used, Yak was also a good gunsmith and a awful good shot or so I'm told.

[Texas Lawdog]

I did not know about the gun or the fact that Yak was a gunsmith. He was one heck of a rodeo rider before he got into the movies.

[Delmonico]

There was years ago in some gun rag a story on Yak based on an interview before he passed.  The author who ever it was had known him well.  One of the interesting stories he had was about being at a now defunkt gun range with Yak that had a 1000 yard range.  They were standing shooting the breeze when a coyote wandered onto the range about halfway between the berm and firing line.  Yak picked up his rifle, one of those wonderful pre-64 70's bull guns in 300 H&H and shot the coyote offhand with the thing, not a bad shot, not hard to believe for a man who was good with a rifle.

[Trailrider]

Yes indeed, one of my favorite JW movies!  Although it's been awhile since I watched it, I seem to remember that it was a tip-up model, not a top-break.  Still a classic scene and a sterling example of how to make a movie -- no digital special effects, gore, sex, or profanity.  Instead they had actors who ACT, a plot, and great camera work that makes your imagination figure things out instead of being spoon-fed to the dumbed-down masses.

Great flick!

My bad! Of course it was a tip-up!  I'm used to turning them upside down! 

[Drayton Calhoun]

A Classic.....

but did you happen to see the Willy Nelson , Kris Kristoferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash "THING" by the same name ? 

Willy as Doc Holiday ?  He was much better cast as Barbraosa.

I must agree, Major, THING is quite appropriate. The remake during the sixties with Bing Crosby was more entertaining, but the original is still by far the best.

[Dead I]

In the 30's, when Stagecoach was made all guns were originals, from the Colt SAAs to the Winchesters to the Smith Top breaks.  Also all of the machine guns were real and for a long time they shot live rounds in them.  James Cagney was nearly killed and he made a big stink about it and they went to blanks.

I was a go-fer in a western with the AFI in the early 70's.  I went to MGM to pick up some guns for the film.  All originals.  The room was huge and they had everything, mortors, machine guns of all kinds, winchesters galore.  Lugers and Mauser pistols hung on the walls by the dozens.  All original.  They were also, most of them, badly beat up.  Few of the Colts cylinders locked up right.  The 92 Winchesters were beat all to  hell.

Not long after that replicas came into being and the studios sold off their originals.  They still us real machine guns, I think.  But the Colts are replicas, which is as it should be.  Oh, the actors had no clue, most of them, how to work guns.  I had to teach them to load single rounds into a winchester.  Before we'd shoot a scene they'd be told how many rounds they'd shoot and what they were going to shoot them at.  Then they'd count the rounds out to me, and I'd load the guns, watching the actors carefully.

[Doc Cuervo]

A Classic.....

but did you happen to see the Willy Nelson , Kris Kristoferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash "THING" by the same name ? 

Willy as Doc Holiday ?  He was much better cast as Barbraosa.

I alwas wondered who the dumb @$$ was that told Willy Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristoferson that they could act. And did the same BSn bas%@&# tell Kristoferson he could sing?
Well, he lied!

[Drayton Calhoun]

Well, I certainly cannot argure with that!

[hawkeye2]

       Andy Devine got his part in the film because he actually could and did drive a 6 horse team.