This film ranks number one on my list of all-time favorite westerns. It has everything from perfect casting in every part, to Indian attacks, the cavalry riding to the rescue, a showdown, great stunts and great unforgettable characters. It's simply John Ford's greatest film.

The highlight of the film, for me, has always been the during the Indian attack when veteran stunt man Yakima Canutt first doubles an Indian mounting the stagecoach team of horses, being shot off and falling under the coach and its horses. Later in the same sequence, he doubles John Wayne jumping onto the team and working his way up to the lead team and bringing the coach under control as the cavalry rides to the rescue.

This movie is not really a matured Western, as it does show and endorse the conventional slaying of the battling natives by gunfire and such. Still, it shows how much a Western can change in time, yet still have an appeal with its story elements, character, and especially with its style. An American classic nevertheless with director John Ford bringing his valley in Arizona which he would later use with star John Wayne in The Searchers and She wore a Yellow Ribbon, among others for himself as director, to the film of the tale of a group of people all stuck together on a stagecoach. After reading the short story from which the film is based on, some of the characters made sense, but they are still very much casted perfectly. New star John Wayne is in one these kinds of iconic performances that only got as good as with the Searchers. Plus there is Oscar winner Thomas Mitchell as a drunken, but not stupid, doctor. Very memorable as character study and as a pure action Western as well. As far as the style goes, the long-touted rumor that Orson Welles watched this film 40 times before directing Citizen Kane only makes the experience more enjoyable.