Stagecoach (1966 film)

Also in the cast, playing their sole credited film roles, were two notable artists. Fifteenth-billed David Humphreys Miller, a 47-year-old western historian, specialized in the culture of the northern Plains Indians and was known for creating 72 portraits of survivors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Twentieth-billed Norman Rockwell, aged 71, was engaged to be on the set to paint portraits of the stars and was assigned the small role of a town poker player nicknamed Busted Flush.^[6] The film's closing-credits sequence features the full-screen inscription, THE CAST AS PAINTED BY NORMAN ROCKWELL, followed by images of each of the ten leading players in the same order as in the opening credits. The portraits were also used in the poster for the film.^[7][8]

According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $6,300,000 in rentals to break even and made $6,950,000, meaning it made a profit.^[20]

Variety summed it up as: "New version of "Stagecoach" is loaded with b.o. appeal. Ten stars repping a wide spectrum of audience interest, an absorbing script about diverse characters thrown together by fate, plus fine direction and performances are all wrapped up in a handsomely mounted Martin Rackin production...Crosby projects eloquently the jaded worldliness of a down-and-outer who still has not lost all self-respect. Much humor evolves from his running gag with Red Buttons, the preacher-dressed and -mannered liquor salesman played earlier by the late Donald Meek."^[21]

The New York Times review included: "The action fans may not be short-changed, but only a few of the principals achieve more than surface effects. In a decided departure from the norm, Bing Crosby, as the unshaven, sodden surgeon, is casual, natural, glib and mildly funny. Mr. Heflin is authoritative and taciturn as the marshal intent on keeping his prisoner, the Ringo Kid, from being shot down by the savage Plummers, and Mr. Cord is properly hard, sinewy and determined as that vengeful lone cowhand. [...] But "Stagecoach," after all, is a horse opera, and the horses, the eye-catching scenery, those dependable hands, and superb sound and fury make it an enjoyable trip most of the way."^[22]

Quentin Tarantino is an admirer of the film, saying it "can stand proudly alongside the John Ford version" and adding that he particularly enjoyed the performances of Bing Crosby, Alex Cord and Mike Connors, as well as the direction of Gordon Douglas.^[23]

Filmink argued Cummings was better than Barton Churchill in the 1939 original.^[24]

Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide (2014 edition) gave Stagecoach 2½ stars (out of 4), describing it as a "[C]olorful, star-studded Western" which "is OK, but can't hold a candle to the 1939 masterpiece". Maltin also calls it "[O]verlong" and notes that "Wayne Newton sings the title song!".^[25] Steven H. Scheuer's Movies on TV (1972–73 edition) also granted 2½ stars (out of 4), characterizing it "[A]n all-star remake of the classic" and evaluating that "[T]he Ford version was better, but the action is still pretty good the second time around". A later edition (1986–87) shortened the capsule review to "[A]n all-star…" and "[A]ction is still pretty good…". A still later edition (1993–1994) retained "[A]n all-star", but revised the second sentence to "[D]oesn't live up to its predecessor, but OK on its own terms".

Assigning 2 stars (out of 5), The Motion Picture Guide (1987) posited that "[W]hy Hollywood insists on remaking classics will always be a puzzle. John Ford's 1939 version of the Haycox story was a genuine western classic and this is a genuine western omelette. The presence of Crosby, in his last acting job in movies, saves the movie from being a total mess. In 1986, a TV version of the picture was done with several country music stars in the leads, as well as Liz Ashley and Anthony Newley. It was so awful, it made this movie look good by comparison". Later in its write-up, The Guide opines that "[W]hereas the original had engaging characters and not all that much violence, this one concentrates on bloodletting, the dialog is a failed attempt to be 'adult', and the performances are generally substandard. Norman Rockwell appears briefly. He'd done the excellent portraits of the actors used with the end credit and they rewarded him with a role in the picture, his first and only. Wayne Newton sings 'Stagecoach to Cheyenne' (Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance). It's the kind of song one dislikes upon first hearing and hates upon the second".^[26]

VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (2011 edition) does not have a separate entry for the 1966 version but, at the end of its write-up for the 1939 classic is the sentence, "Remade miserably with [sic] in 1966 and again—why?—as a TV movie in 1986".

Among British references, TimeOut Film Guide critic Paul Taylor advised to "[L]ook again at the credits before you're tempted: this is the witless remake of Ford's classic, with neither colour nor Cord anything like adequate recompense for Bert Glennon's dusty monochrome or Wayne's early strut as the Ringo Kid" (from 2009 edition).^[27] Leslie Halliwell in his Film Guide (5th edition, 1985) felt even less charitable, denigrating it as an [A]bsolutely awful remake of the above; costly but totally spiritless, miscast and uninteresting". Finally, David Shipman in his 1984 Good Film and Video Guide, does not grant it any stars (Shipman's top number is 4), questioning "[Y]ou wonder why they dared – or bothered. In Ford's film (see previous entry), everything works, but here, almost nothing does". He concludes with "Keenan Wynn plays a bad man waiting for the stage to arrive. His professionalism, and that of Heflin and Crosby, are some consolation".

• Stagecoach at IMDb
• Stagecoach at AllMovie
• Stagecoach at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Stagecoach at the TCM Movie Database (archived version)
• Stagecoach at Rotten Tomatoes
• Stagecoach at TV Guide (revised form of this 1987 write-up was originally published in The Motion Picture Guide)
• Hollywood Backstage, footage of behind-the-scenes location filming, time stamp 4:12 on YouTube