Stagecoach to Dancers' Rock (1962) User Reviews

I thought it quite good!

[Marlburian · 7/10 · 15 October 2021]

In contrast to what was said in the four other reviews, I found this film quite entertaining. Sure, the cast, apart from Martin Landau, was low key, but the acting was reasonable.

I was surprised at some of the violence, but then STDR was made in the early 60s, when more grittiness was being introduced into Westerns.

But I agree with others about the terrible ballads.

Stagecoach to Dancers' Rock (1962)

[trimbolicelia · 5/10 · 8 April 2022]

I never liked this western. The brutality, for me, was shocking. Especially for the early 60's. The part when the psychopath, played by Martin Landau, takes the female doctor (a truly emancipated and positive character) and repeatedly beats and rapes her is one of the most ugly moments I've ever heard in movies. Thankfully it happens in a tent and you never see it, but you definitely hear it. Ugh and Yuck. Spare yourself.

Bad Martin! Bad!

[henri sauvage · 18 July 2011]

It's a shame, really. This one started off with real potential, a good premise and some promising characters. Plus I'm a sucker for Westerns (actually, any film) set in the high desert, with its bizarre Joshua trees and cacti and stark, sun-blasted landscapes. Unfortunately, that potential is quickly squandered in terrible dialog, trite and unfocused storytelling and lackluster direction.

Warren Stevens delivers one of his typical low-key performances, while Martin Landau begins well enough, as Dade Coleman, a cultured, cynical gambler something in the mold of John Carradine's character in "Stagecoach". Underneath, though, Coleman's anything but a chivalrous gentleman with a strict code of honor. In fact, he's a complete psychopath, but even if the plot and dialog had been better -- this is Kenneth Darling's one and only credited script -- the 72-minute running time and slow pacing don't give Landau much opportunity to imbue the character with the kind of subtle menace that made his "Leonard" in "North by Northwest" so riveting.

For whatever reason, on this occasion he opted for "way overblown", and the results are embarrassingly bad.

On the other hand, Jody Lawrance gives a very sympathetic and convincing performance as ill-fated Dr. Ann Thompson, and Judy Dan is always a pleasure to see. (I imagine she must have been thrilled to get a role that for once didn't involve one of the typical Asian female stereotypes of the time, even if it meant playing a character who's in a chicken-pox-induced stupor for two thirds of the film.) Darling deserves some credit for giving his female leads some depth, for some occasional brutal realism that's fairly unusual for the early 60s, and for a truly shocking bit of inventive sadism involving boots, a hat-box and a rattlesnake. But overall, this is a mess, a sadly wasted opportunity and complete waste of time for anyone expecting a great Western.

Low-budget western with a no-budget look

[frankfob · 2/10 · 5 August 2004]

This chintzy, cheesy B western looks like it was cranked out in just a few days, something to be expected from a low-rent outfit like PRC or Lippert, or even Monogram, but not from a major studio like Universal, where this came from. Then again, Universal's fortunes in the early 1960s were on their way down, so maybe this boring little oater wasn't as atypical as one might think. Anyway, it's a limp story of passengers ejected from a stagecoach when the crew suspects that one or more of them might have contracted smallpox. There's no tension (or sense or logic) in Kenneth Darling's script, there's no pacing (or imagination or much of anything) in Earl Bellamy's direction, and the actors either overact outrageously or underplay to the point of catatonia. Cheap looking, predictable and not worth a first look, let alone a second. There are better ways to waste your time.

Flat In Every Way

[boblipton · 4/10 · 8 April 2020]

Six travelers are on a stagecoach. When the driver discovers one of them has smallpox, he abandons all of them in the middle of the desert.

Well, I didn't see that coming, nor, since I am at home during Coronavirus lockdown as I write this, is this a movie I can write about with my usual arch snarkiness. It's Earl Bellamy directing one of his 18 theatrical movies amidst an estimated 1600 hours of TV time. As you might expect, it's efficiently directed, but the wide vistas of the California desert are reduced to an unsatisfying black-and-white flatness, more suited to a television screen.

Also, despite some real talent among the actors, including Warren Stevens and Martin Landau, are there any characters for them to sink their teeth into. It's just half a dozen strangers in the middle of a desert, trying to walk their way out, while worrying about Apaches. Not very interesting.

"A Tale Of Little Meaning"

[stryker-5 · 5 August 2000]

This is a truly terrible film. One of Universal's cheap westerns, it suffers from a candidate for Worst Script Ever Written and some fairly atrocious acting. The basic storyline is this - five travellers are marooned in the Arizona desert when their stagecoach crew suspects them of carrying smallpox. Will they make it to Dancers' Rock, and safety?

An excruciatingly dire ballad accompanies the action. (Surely this woeful ditty was the inspiration for the theme tune of "Gilligan's Island"?) There is an even worse song at the end, the wince-inducing "Confucius Say".

"The game was just too big for him," says one character of another, but he might equally have been talking about script-writer Keneth Darling. For sheer clumsiness, this dialogue is in a class of its own. When Halloran expresses a dislike of native Americans, Anne retorts, "Surely this is not the sentiment of a dedicated indian agent? The Apache nation deserves much more from you, sir." Halloran actually speaks the word "Bah!" - something only ever seen in children's comics before this. The entire script is couched in ugly 'formal' English, as if Darling were striving after polished elegance, with Halloran in particular having to mouth sentences that no-one would dream of uttering in a real conversation. Baddies actually say corny things like "Make your move at Apache Pass". After Loi Yan has been ill for some time, instead of saying "she's still sick," Anne comes out with, "She can't seem to throw off this lethargy." The term 'full-blooded' crops up with annoying regularity. We have a full-blooded gal, Loi Yan is full-blooded Chinese and there are full-blooded Apaches, too.

If Darling is awful at writing dialogue, he is far, far worse at plotting. Check out the sandstorm which comes and goes without ruffling the desert or darkening the sky, and the constantly-permutating love interest which is neither prepared nor resolved. Loi Yan seems to be heading for an affair with Major Southern but ends up with Jess, and Anne is everybody's at some point in the story. The arrival of the second stagecoach, and the plot consequences which flow from it, are so diabolically badly done that they are actually funny.

The screenplay calls for the young Martin Landau (playing Dade Colman the gambler) to overact appallingly, and Landau obliges. He hams up the walk through the sandstorm to the point where it becomes embarrassing, but worse is to come. He goes completely over the top during Colman's brief taste of power. Landau is a respected actor today, but he is lucky that his career survived this performance.

It would be tedious to list all the examples of lousy judgment contained in the film, so two examples are selected to convey the flavour. First, the stagecoach crewmen banter as they work the reins, but the background shows clearly that the stagecoach isn't actually moving. Second, Jess and Loi Yan ride off doubled-up on one horse, leading several other horses by their reins. Why don't they ride a horse each?