The New York Times Persimmon Hill Preview Persimmon Hill Magazine Walter Wanger Letter Letter from Kayenta, AZ Louise Platt Interview Stagecoach Movie Booklet 2002 Louise Platt Letter Misc Documents Character Portraits Movie Scenes

ART/ARCHITECTURE; Eyes Wide Open to the Wide Open Spaces

In 1993, Norman Scott, then a real estate investor in Louisville, Ky., was leafing through his father’s old letters, looking for vintage airmail stamps to augment his son’s collection. Ned Scott, a Hollywood-based photographer who died of liver failure in 1964 at age 57, had been something of a mystery to Norman, who had never grasped his father’s place in the world of 30’s and 40’s photography. Then Norman read one of the letters, dated 1935. It referred to Ned’s photo session with Katharine Hepburn. Then he found a cache of negatives marked “Hepburn heads.” Like all of Ned’s work, the Hepburn portraits had been filed in boxes, untouched since Ned abandoned Hollywood in 1948.

“I began to realize that my father’s work was more significant than I had ever imagined,” Mr. Scott said. He established the Ned Scott Archive later that year. By then he had learned that Ned had shot the special stills for Paul Strand’s “Redes” (“The Wave”) in the mid-30’s, as well as those for John Ford’s 1939 western melodrama “Stagecoach,” the film generally recognized as the movie that put the western on the cinematic map, starring John Wayne as Ford’s archetypal hero.

Read more posted at The New York Times

Walter Wanger Letter

Walter Wanger Productions Incorproated

1045 North Formosa Ave,

Los Angeles, California

Mr. Lynn Farol

United Artists Studios

729 Seventh Avenue

New York City February 9, 1939

Dear Lynn,

I think the booklet on “STAGECOACH” is interesting and attractive. It fails, however, to indicate the full measure of credit that is due John Ford for his part in the making of the picture.

I read the story–but after Ford had purchased it and brought it to me. Again, it was Ford who worked with Dudley Nichols in creating the fine script; and John Wayne as The Ringo Kid was also Ford’s idea.

While I am proud to be the producer of “STAGECOACH”, will you please to everything in your power to see that the picture is known as John Ford’s achievement.

Sincerely,

Walter Wanger

Scan of Letter:

Letter from Kayenta, AZ

Readable copy of letter:

Date: Wednesday

Location: Kayenta, Arizona

Dearest–

I am writing only because if I don’t, I’ll catch hell when I get home–no–!–but I’ve been so goddamned tired and I’ve been so cold & busy that I’ve hardly had energy to write. They’re crazy–this outfit–up at 5 A.M. and back at 6 P.M. then I have to unload & load & have super & a shower & by that time I’m dead. So glad I didn’t bring my own equipment. Dust galore–wind–rain–snow–and more WIND. I’m fed up & want to get back home & to you. Think there is only about another day here & then we go to Tuba City & Cimarron & then I don’t know what. Everything is going according to schedule–if there is any schedule! Ford seems happy with what has been shot so far so perhaps we will be back on time–maybe sooner! I doubt it though. Don’t let my return alter your plans darling–think it would be swell if you got to Babs–and if you do–you should stay at least a week–if not longer. The change wouold do you a world of good altho it sure would be tough to come home and not find you. I shouldn’t say that! The phone to Flagstaff has been out ever since we arrived but someone has been coming in nearly every day–am looking forward to wire from you about your plans. Love to you, my darling–Jesus! my bed is hard and lonely–20 are in one room–CCC camp–snoring galore–Good night, my sweet–I love you–Ned.

Transcript available here

Stagecoach Movie Booklet

TEXT of Stagecoach Movie Booklet:

Titled: That amazing STAGECOACH and some interesting facts about its history and the strange people who depended upon it…

Our country is great. Our pride in what it stands for is real. Our gratitude for what it has given us is unquestioned. If we stop to take inventory of the assets which have given us our our balance-sheet of dignity, freedom and respect of the world, we would be bound to highlights a thousand events in a glorious history. To compress it all into a single screenplay would be an impossibility.

Bearing this in mind, but without ever forgetting the whole pattern, Walter Wanger produced “Stagecoach”. It is a single incident in the Westward progress of a people. Yet it is a symbol of our whole development.

“Stagecoach” presents a small group of people against the background of the panoramic West. They are a likely group of people, a representative group–yes, you could call them an ordinary, everyday group of people. Yet behind each of the them lurks his or her individual story. Ahead of each of them looms a personal future of much hope, but little certainty.

They are thrown together for a trip by Stagecoach. In forty-eight hours they will separate on paths as widely diverse as those which brought them together. Yet before the journey is over, some of them will have good reason for hate; two of them will have discovered love; there will be death; there will even be the birth of one new life.

Within the narrow confines of a Stagecoach, life goes on. And another brilliant page in history is written! Just as the production of “Stagecoach” is a glimpse on one romantic chapter in the growth of America, so these pages must serve as a glimpse into the artistry that has put that chapter on the screen.

THE STORY OF STAGECOACH

On April 10, 1937, Walter Wanger was reading the current number of Collier’s. On page 18, there was a story by Ernest Haycox. Mr. Wanger’s eyes wandered to the opening words. “This was one of those years in the Territory when Apache smoke signals spiraled up from the stony mountain summits…”

He read on: The Stagecoach from Tonto to Lordsburg was just about ready to leave. Its passengers were gathering for the long and hazardous journey. News had just been received that the murderous Geronimo and his Apaches were out to kill again.

There was nothing unusual about the small group of passengers–that is, nothing unusual unless you knew them, and knew them well. There was, for example, a girl named Dallas. To the naked eye she looked like nothing more or less than the dance-hall girl she was. There was Buck–the Stagecoach driver–blustering but a little afraid of what Geronimo might be having in mind. There was Hatfield, the gambler; there was Lucy Mallory, going to join her husband; there was Doc Boone being “poured” into the Stagecoach by the Temperance League; there was Curly Wilcox, going about the mysterious duties of U.S. Marshal.

Mr. Wanger read on–about The Ringo Kid and about Gatewood, the banker–the first an outlaw, though guilty of no crime; the second a thief, though still within the law.

Here was the beginning of a story born out of action, adventure and history–a story that needed only the magic touch of a master craftsman to take it off the page and put it, iife-size, onto the screen.

Who was to be that craftsman? There could only be one answer–John Ford. With a record of “The Lost Patrol”, “Arrowsmith”, “The Informer”, “Steamboat, Roufh The Bend”, “Mary of Scotland” and “The Hurricane” among many others, no one but John Ford could combine the romance, the adventure, the suspense, the speed and the humanity that were contained in the story of “Stagecoach”.

Dudley Nichols was to be the one enlisted to write the screenplay. And after months of preparation, “Stagecoach” emerged ready for the call of “Camera!”

As Walter Wanger visualized the characters in the story, they practically cast themselves–taking shape very much like–

Claire Trevor as Dallas

She had no first name, and had no last. Dallas was what they called her–that is, when they took the trouble to call her by name at all. A young dance hall girl who had come from nowhere and kept moving because she wasn’t good enough to associate with respectable women. Hardened by the frontier, toughened by a life no civilized woman was meant for, Dallas was amazed to discover that she was loved–that she, in turn, was a woman in love.

John Wayne as The Ringo Kid

He’d been wanting to get to Lordsburg to settle an old score with three men waiting for him there–settle it in the only way known on the frontier–by means of speeding, singing lead. But he was wanted by the law, and he couldn’t get to Lordsburg unless he surrendered to the U.S. Marshal. He gave himself up, went along on the Stagecoach, and met his enemies. But–on the way to Lordsburg he also met Dallas, and that made a difference…

Andy Devine as Buck

One of the best and loudest drivers in the Territory–even if he was scared of Indians who, he claimed, were always ready to pop him off. Yet he preferred the dangers of the trail to the thought of returning to his wife, his eight kids and a multitude of sponging relatives too numerous to count on his fingers–and toes. Buck wasn’t very educated.

John Carradine as Hatfield

Gambler, mystic, adventurer–deft in his manners, even more deft at cards. His strange past was filled with unconfessed crimes–but his were the highest ideals on the subject of pure womanhood. Where di he come from?–Where was he going?–Questions to which no one will ever know the answer. But his score with life was settled, though death was high stakes even for an adventuring gambler.

Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone

Too “fluid” to stay put, the drinking doctor moved on with the Stagecoach. Maybe there was better drinking ahead–and no Temperance League. Nine cups of black coffee and a dim remembrance of medical tradition sobered him up enough to bring a baby into thr world–though the surgery was cabin in the wilderness and the operating table a floor of clay.

Louise Platt as Lucy MalloryLucy Mallory

Mrs. Mallory wanted to be with her husband when their baby was born. Courageously she chanced the long trip by Stagecoach. She reached her destination too late–but in sufficient time to witness the courage and character of a woman she had only despised.

George Bancroft as Curly Wilcox

Untied States Marshal–the arm of the law extending to the frontier of a great and growing nation. Ready to kill and be killed for the laws by which men live–but ready also to forget rules and regulations for he sake of humanity.

Tim Holt as Lieutenant Blanchard

Military genius in the no-man’s-land of America’s wilderness. Ambassador with Portfolio–of courage, tact, daring.

Berton Churchill as Gatewood

A pillar of society–but the termites had gotten to him–the termites of greed. He kept calling this a business trip–hoping no one would detect the embezzled fortune he was carrying off in his small black bag.

Donald Meek as Peacock

A whiskey salesman–and what if he mixed his sales talks with sermons? Didn’t he always want to be a preacher until his wife inherited that distillery?

And so “Stagecoach” started on its epoch making journey with a group of passengers who were to live through love and hatred, kindness and greed, ambition and despair–each of them on his or her way to a destiny unknown.

“Stagecoach” is the story of these people, and what happened to them in the short lapse of forty-eight hours.

THE STAGECOACH COUNTRY

Except for a railroad station a hundred and eighty miles away, one or two roads of the axel-cracking type, a single telephone line, and an emergency radio phone–except for these appurtenances of civilization, the country where Walter Wanger’s “Stagecoach” was filmed is exactly as it was in 1885–the time of the story.

After all, sea level changes very little in fifty odd years, and the Arizona plateau that greeted the eyes of John Ford and his company was practically as high–four thousand feet–as it was a half a century ago–as it has been, in fact, for the past 160,000,000 years. The expanse of the wasteland of which Monument Valley is a part, still measured a hundred by four hundred miles. The jutting buttes which Ford saw still rose sharply to heights of from five hundred feet. The mountain air was clear, distances were misleading, the arroyos were dry, and the sagebrush was everywhere. As the director of “Stagecoach” walked onto his location site, he went back m,ore than fifty years. There wasn’t a Burma -Shave sign in sight. True, the “Stagecoach” company came in a fleet of cars and trucks. But once arrived, they had to function much as the early settlers did–unload, pitch a camp, and go to work. Also true, the Indians in Monument Valley didn’t start shooting arrows into the pale-face movie folks’ midriff. But Ford and his men now say they would rather have had a battle than go through the ordeal of getting the Indians to sign social security cards so they could appear before the cameras.

Much has been happening in the world, but to Monument Valley and its redskin citizens, it is still 1885.

There is, for example, the matter of money. Bills may be in circulation–in fact, highly acceptable–everywhere else. But in Monument Valley they don’t exist. Silver coins are a novelty, considered all right enough to buy a few things necessary for life. Sometimes a Navajo of the Valley will even make himself a belt of silver dollars–a concession to the fact that these coins, when new, are pretty flashy. But when it comes to measuring his wealth, The Monument Valley native thinks only in terms of turquoise.

For centuries, turquoise has been treasured by the Navajo–mainly because it is the color of the sky. For centuries, he has been finding it, collecting it,and handing it down to his heirs. For centuries the Indian of Monument Valley as never parted with his precious turquoise unless dire need made it necessary.It is just the same today.

This tradition in the field of wealth can be applied to every branch of life in Monument Valley. Let cities grow upward and outward; let forests be destroyed and rejuvenated; let farming be mechanized and systematized. It means nothing to the Navajo of Northern Arizona who will go on forever as he has been going on for eons.

Navajo Indians are a nomadic people. A brave and his family any build and live in three or four hogans (or huts) each year–one during the corn growing season: another during the grazing season and still another during the winter season. Most Indians have a flock of 25 to 100 sheep to provide wool for weaving; a cow (or steer) and an Indian pony (cayuse) belonging to the buck.

Like his Astecian ancestors his religion consists mostly of a deep reverence for nature and many rituals inspired by sun, moon and stars. While the days of fantastic and fanatical Medicine Men have passed, present day Navajo and Apaches have great faith in their own religious cures.

The moral code of the Indian is strict, with the Squaw having far more freedom and dictation than is the popular belief. The squaw does most of the labor–builds the hogan, does the cooking, raises the family and weaves the cloth, blankets and rugs. The buck is the warrior and trader and extremely shrewd in his business dealings.

In the days of “Stagecoach”, the buck wore little except a breech cloth and moccasins. They carried with them heavy woolen blankets (draped over their ponies) which served as a cover when they slept out of doors or when it rained. Today these red men wear an old white man’s coat or come discarded army uniform coat, or a vest, or a shirt worn outside trousers or overalls and shoes or moccasins. Occasionally they wear old hats; seldom even one feather. They paint their faces only for tribal ceremonies.

Letter from Louise Platt in 2002

Transcript of letter dated July 8, 2002 from Louise Platt of Southold, New York to the Ned Scott Archive in Louisville, Kentucky

I’m so old that I can remember when a typewritten letter was just for business. My father even sent back a letter of mine because it was not handwritten–I use that as a rationale for remaining computer illiterate–it seems to me that labor-saving devices actually take too much time.

You have asked me to remember and so I shall. Some of Stagecoach seems as close as yesterday–the rest has faded into a cloud.

The reason I am the sole survivor (of the cast) is that I was the youngest–I had a twenty-fourth birthday in the last seek of shooting. I will write things from that film as they come to me.

Claire Trevor was the most beautiful-hearted person that I had met, or ever met. We remained friends all those years since tho only by mail or the telephone. I cannot bear the sadness of her dying even tho’ considering age alone it was to be expected. Alas! My own is the only departure of which I am certain. All whom I love should never die–.

She read the Oz books during the five weeks we were shooting–I think she finished Quickly Duild of Oz on the last day! She said she never read them or had them read to her when she was a child;that the longing to have had that churned in her mind too often–she reasoned that the only was to use her head for better things was to get rid of the invasive regret of never having had them. She said much later when I asked, that it had done the trick–I received a last letter from her just before she died.

Tim Holt and I looked alike! Perhaps that was because our fathers have exact images of one another–in fact I flew at Jack Holt when he came on the set to visit Tim. I thought he was my own dad!

John Carradine played heavies but was a dear pussy cat. He introduced me to the discovery that Edward De Vere, V.Chancellor to Elizabeth !, was the real author of the William Shakespeare plays. I have been obsessed with this identification ever since and hope that it will by fully accepted in my lifetime which gives the theory at least a year to explode. John and I saw one another rarely in N.Y. He was as marvelous on the stage as in movies. It was his voice and that long-boned face plus compete and basic honesty.

John and I talked of nothing else in the five weeks we worked together except Shakespeare. When the whole cast was at the dinner table before some Stagecoach event or other, Donny Meek (Donald Meek) in a sudden rage jumped up onto the dining table, broke off the neck of a coke bottle and came towards poor surprised John (Carradine) in the highest dudgeon–fortunately he was restrained by others but foaming at the lip he said, “All I’ve heard for five weeks is Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare. I can’t stand it another minute.” In about two seconds Donny was smiling and munching chicken. Donny was lightly non compos mentis but certainly a great talent–he was a scene stealer, too. One time when he was in the background of a barroom scene of someone’s close-up he reached for a slice of bread and with it wearily wiped his brow as though it was an unbearably hot summer day. You have to look sharp but part of his antic is still there.

You have specifically asked about Tommy Mitchell. Although I had known him ever so slightly in New York, he did not know me then and never indicated any memory of a certain occasion ie: I was sent to Philadelphia to replace a certain actress in a play which was directed by Tommy. As instructed I went to Philadelphia and saw he play. The sage manager came to me and said “Unfortunately the director is not here. ” “That’s Okay”, I said. “I’ll find him.” I went to the bar, and sure enough Tommy was there, stoned. “Mr. Mitchell,” I said, “I’m Louise Platt and I have just seen your play and…”. “Don’t tell me,” he interrupted, “don’t ell me what you think of it.” “I like it very much,” I said, “but I think the ingenue is really good.” “there’s always an actor who must pay by sacrifice,” he said. “Anyway,” I said, “There’s no point in replacing her. “She’s much better than I would be.” I went back to New York. The play opened. It wasn’t a hit but it wasn’t a flop, either. The play had problems nothing to do with the actors. Tommy was right, though–when a play is in trouble certain of the cast will always be sacrificed on the altar of the theater-God. The young ingenue had been replaced–no better–no worse.

During Stagecoach our former meeting was never acknowledged so I assumed the occasion had faded into the mist–and yet: Tommy invited me and John Barrymore to his house one afternoon–tea was served–then he stood before the fireplace and with tears in his eyes he told this story: “You probably know that at one time I was a hopeless washed-up slob–I lost the people most dear to me. My wife, the best woman in the world was very patient but finally, sadly could no longer accept me as I had become–she and my daughter left me. I wept and wept and wept.”

I’ve invited you here because I want you two especially to know what has happened. I have not had a drink in two years. I have courted my wife and daughter. My wife accepted my marriage proposal of yesterday afternoon. We’re having a wedding to which you two are the first to be invited”–so saying he raised his tea cup. We three raised ours in celebration–John Barrymore went on the wagon for eight months after that and I thought that perhaps Tommy had remembered after all–that e invited John because John was a hopeless inebriate and because I had once seen Tommy in his cups. I certainly remember that afternoon–one of the best of all moments. I can vaguely recall the wedding–J.B. was completely charming and told anyone and everyone proudly that his present sobriety was in honor of Tommy Mitchell, the groom.

An appointment was made at Walter Wanger’s office to meet John Ford and Dudley Nichols. As you probably know practical jokes were legendary in those days. Specifically against actors–one was pulled out of the hat that day. Now I had known many “patsy crultiss” in my young days and had always “taken” them quietly–this one hit me at a sensitive day, I guess, for I walked out and said I wouldn’t be in their damned picture if it were the last film I ever made. I went back to the hotel, packed my bag and was waiting for a car to take me to the airport. Dudley Nichols came to persuade me not to go. “It was just a joke”, he said,”nobody was laughing”, I said. “That wasn’t meant to be taken seriously”, he said. I was shaking with anger and pride too because I’d finally had the courage to face the mean-spiritors down. After a day and a half Dudley persuaded me to change my mind.

The first scene shot with the whole cast was at the dining table. I said my lines. The camera stopped rolling. John Ford walked towards me. ‘Here it comes”, I thought. He leaned slightly towards me and said, “I don’t want a Virginia accent, I don’t want any charms. This gal is cold as a rock.” He went back to the camera I played cold as a rock. John Ford never said anything else to me–except always”How would you like to do this scene?” I would say, he would nod agreement, and that was that. At the first showing of the movie we were all in the coach with a team of horses slipping and sliding neighing and snorting on the stage of the Pantages (theater). Now that was a ride–fortunately of short duration. Then we saw the movie for the first time. I was a little worried all that night–something wasn’t quite right. By morning I knew what was bothering me. I telephoned John Ford. “Mr. Ford”, I said quivering at my own temerity, “You told me that all Lucy Mallory is thinking of is getting there.” “Yes–and,” he said. “Well,” I ventured she doesn’t, for all the audience knows, ‘get’ there”. “What do you mean.” “Well,” I said, “She’s unresolved, the audience might think she was shot. They won’t know.” Somewhat acerbic, he said, “This story is not about Lucy Mallory.” ‘I know that,” I continued, “but if the audience saw her arrive she’d be resolved.” “Oh, God!”, he said, “Another actress wanting more dialogue.” “No, no.” I said, “No dialogue, just arrival. It would be another chance to show how warm and good-hearted Dallas is–like your marvelous close-up of her saying, ‘It’s a girl.’ ” (Which is my opinion of a great close-up with a short piece of dialogue showing how good the woman is and what a loving wife and mother she’ll be without exposition.) Without a word in reply the phone clicked and I thought that was the end of it. The next day i got a call to be at the studio at 6 for a retake. We did the scene I thought should be there–wonder of wonders–what began as a promised dreary experience ended up as a rare one.

Since Stagecoachh has become a classic, each person connected with it including the actors has said they always knew it would be one of the great films. Don’t you believe it. It’s success was a surprise to everyone but John Ford. John Ford said things a few a which I remember. “The saying about old soldiers is really about actors. viz: (old) actors never die, hey just fade away.” I said, “It says in the script–she is a Virginian with a musical accent, charming and polite or perhaps Dudley said that.” The reply was, “That’s Dudley’s direction, not mine and I’ll probably never work with him again. I think a mote is for the eye. Dudley thinks it’s to the ear. His next film will no doubt be three hours long–I like a minimum of dialogue–Dudley loves verbiage.”

Of Claire Trevor; “I’ve always been a fan.

Of John Wayne: “Hell be the biggest star ever because he is the perfect everyman.”

Of me: “You are the easiest to work with. (He was a;ways a little afraid that I will tell about his mean practical joke. I never have. Here I merely told that there was one.) and “You’ll go back to N. Y.–the theater will be more suitable for you than pictures–”

If when you watch Stagecoach the early dialogue seems to fly past too speedily I think that is because some of the frames were destroyed.

The former director of A.M. Her. Cent (American Heritage Center) was planning to come East and asked if we could meet. In one of my moves his letter,, address, etc. was lost and I forgot his name–I kept meaning to take the trouble to find out is name in order to answer. Time slipped by so fast. I never contacted him. He probably has the drawing I mentioned–I regret I was so remiss. I now have writer’s cramp. This is the first time I have answered a request like your own. And undoubtedly the last. I admire your effort in favor of Ned Scott who did his job netter that others did theirs. In case people don’t know how important these stills are the verity of the movie depends on them. I saw a movie the other day–it was a story of the 1800’s the leading lady starts the movie as a brunette–her hair became lighter and lighter as the story progressed till in her last scene she was almost blonde.

Another movie a man had on a green sweater–in the middle of the scene his sweater became checkered.

Once I saw and actor in a scene with an object in his hand (important to the plot) which miraculously must have changed shape in mid air–I could go on and on recounting these things gone wrong because the stills were inaccurate. A scene may not be shot in its entirety in a single day–so matching photos are essential.

I have writers’ camp.

For your sake I wish I could have been succinct.

Sincerely,

Loise Platt

July 7/02

SCANS OF ORIGINAL LETTER

Miscellaneous Documents

Portraits

Movie Scenes

Stagecoach Cast