The Western as a Genre John Ford's Stagecoach (United Artists) has been acclaimed as the official Western classic. Released in 1939 after the hiatus in Western production caused by the advent of sound and the Great Depression during the mid-1930s, it is considered one of the key films that helped revive the A-Western in the 1940s. of the Second World War. Stagecoach has the classic Western recipe. The basic element of that recipe in Stagecoach was authentically dressed cowboys and townsfolk, the dress determining who or what they were; transportation in the form of horses, wagons or stagecoaches; an authentic place, Monument Valley for example; and various clashes, some between Indians and settlers, others between individuals and communities... This recipe had been used many times by the time Stagecoach was filmed in 1939. The development of the Western genre originally arose in biographies of frontiersmen and in novels written about the western frontier in the late 1800s based on myth and manifest destiny. When the film industry decided to turn its sights on the cowboy with The Great Train Robbery in 1903, there was a plethora of literature on the subject in both nonfiction and fiction. The Western also found roots in the "Wild West" stage productions and rodeos of the time. Within the early areas of American literature and theatrical productions, the legend and fear that the West was an untouched wilderness was fixed in the minds of the American people. Productions and rodeos added action and frivolity to the Western film genre. The American film industry's early attempts at making a narrative Western were limited, and in the early years they were produced primarily in the East. During these early years in the film industry... middle of paper... years have gone from a classic plot to the inclusion of aliens, but the basic recipe is the same. A lone cowboy on the fringes of society, placed in a difficult situation that forces him to use violence that he is capable of using, but does not like to use to get himself or others out of the difficult situation. Works Cited Sturges, J. (Editor) (1960). The Magnificent Seven [Theatre].Ford, J. (Director) (1939). Stagecoach [Theatre].Porter, E. (Director) (1903). The Great Train Robbery [Theatre].Hughes, H. (Director) (1943). The Outlaw [Theater].Friedman, L., Desser, D., Kozloff, S., Nichimson, M., & Prince, S. (2014). An introduction to film genres. New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company.Lewis, J. (2008). American cinema, a history. New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company. Buscombe, E. (1988). The BFI companion to the western. New York: Athenaeum.