The Fast And The Furious' Best Action Scene Was Lifted From A Classic John Wayne Western
by Joe Roberts · /FilmWe may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
Long before the "Fast" saga became the gargantuan blockbuster franchise it is today, there was the film that started it all: 2001's "The Fast and the Furious." The inaugural "Fast" outing was dynamic, exciting, and refreshing in its embrace of car-modding and street racing culture. But that doesn't mean it didn't borrow from the classics, copying its big hijacking scene from one of John Wayne's best Westerns, 1939's "Stagecoach."
The debut movie in the now sprawling "Fast" saga was inspired by a magazine story about illegal street racing in New York. As such, it was very different from the later films, focusing more on car-modding and benefiting from a script rewrite by David Ayer, whose own experiences on the streets of Los Angeles lent the film a certain authenticity. Many a millennial will surely recall this movie dropping at the height of car-modding's popularity. It wouldn't be uncommon, for instance, to go straight from playing "Need for Speed Underground" or "Midnight Club" to rewatching "The Fast and the Furious" and maybe even browsing body kits for the 12-horsepower Ford Fiesta your dad bought you.
In other words, "The Fast and the Furious" hit at just the right time, but none of us watching in 2001 were likely aware that the street racing movie was borrowing well-established cinematic moves from a late-1930s Western classic.
The Fast and the Furious' opening scene was the 2001 version of the Stagecoach chase
When crafting the all-important chase scene that opens "The Fast and the Furious," director Gary Scott Thompson looked in the rear-view for inspiration. Back in 1939, John Ford took what was a genre associated almost exclusively with B-movie schlock and reinvigorated it. "Stagecoach" isn't just one of the best Westerns ever made; it was a fine film on its own merits, taking Western archetypes and using a trip across dangerous Apache territory to subvert every one of them, ultimately embracing an egalitarian view of humankind. Of course, it helped that "Stagecoach" had some of the finest action sequences committed to film at the time, most notably a scene in which Apaches attack the titular carriage, with one of the attackers jumping from their horse onto the coach itself.
"The Fast and the Furious" opens with the 2001 version of that same scene, in which a fleet of Honda Civics descends upon a semi-truck as it drives through the Los Angeles night. Unlike when John Wayne's Henry the "Ringo Kid" fought off the Apaches, masked figures now jump from their cars onto the truck, take control, and speed off.
Barry Hertz's book "Welcome to the Family: The Explosive Story Behind Fast & Furious" details how the opening hijack sequence was modeled on "Stagecoach." According to Hertz, Thompson "freely admits" that he borrowed from Ford's classic. "The Civics were the black-masked cowboys, jumping from their horses to the stagecoach while it's moving," said the director. "And once the cowboys take over the stagecoach, there's usually a cliff or some obstacle looming in the distance. That's the highway that narrows down to one lane."
The Fast and the Furious expertly blended the old with the new
With "The Fast and the Furious" inspired by a 1998 Vibe magazine article on street-racing culture in New York City, it might seem surprising to hear that Gary Scott Thompson went all the way back to 1939 for inspiration. But almost as soon as it was released, John Ford's "Stagecoach" quickly became one of the most celebrated examples of how to stage and shoot chase sequences.
The Apache attack scene showcases some of the best movie stunts of all time, expertly shot by Ford and his cinematographer, Bert Glennon. As Roger Ebert put it in his retrospective review of the film in 2011, "Ford never makes the mistake of cutting so quickly that the sense and context of an action sequence is lost. The extended stagecoach chase always makes sense, and he allows his camera to be clear about the stunt work." It's part of the reason the 1960s "Stagecoach" remake, which took Ford's chase scene and somehow managed to elevate it, was so impressive.
As such, Thompson was well within his rights to use a seemingly outdated reference in the opening scene of "The Fast and the Furious." According to Barry Hertz's book, Universal (the studio behind the film) was unaware of the "Stagecoach" influence, with the executives generally staying out of Thompson's way, leaving him to draw inspiration from wherever he liked. That ultimately only helped the movie, which in the end became a perfect melding of the old with the new.