Furthermore, the plots have the timelessness of classical literature. Sturges, by contrast, gives us in Bad Day at Black Rock and Last Train From Gun Hill two plots whose immaculate fulfilment of the unities would not disgrace Aristotle.
Where he observes his people with love, a love which also embraces the territories they inhabit, Sturges remains less preoccupied with the human and geographical forces which went towards shaping the modern America than with essentially private conflicts which could arise in any country in any age.įord presents us in Wagon Master with a band of emigrating Mormons, or in Stagecoach with the dangers of primitive transport these are religious and social issues rooted in his nation’s past. Ford’s approach to the great nineteenth-century pioneering epoch is charged with nostalgic affection and respect. From the start the cowboy picture has been split into two distinct types, as may be seen by comparing the viewpoints of, say, John Ford and John Sturges.
