Stagecoach for kids

I recommended the movie Stagecoach back in February 2010. It's also tonight's Essentials, Jr. selection, at 8:00 PM.

Part of me wonders whether any parnets will have problems with it. After all, you've got Claire Trevor's brothel worker, and an alcoholic among the characters. There's also the violence and the anti-Apache sentiments, which would nowadays be called racist even though this would have been perfectly normal at the time. And yet, I can't help but think a lot of these fine points would go over the heads of a lot of the little ones. There's a fairly powerful story about good versus evil, and individuals against the crowd, in the story, and that's certainly something kids should have no problem grasping.

Also, I always wonder whether the children of a previous generation weren't quite as innocent as we want to think, romanticizing the past. It was perfectly normal for kids to do cooking and even mind store, as we saw in the Little Rascals shorts that aired on TCM back in January. And there's nothing abnormal about Mickey Rooney's expecting to be the man of the house in The Human Comedy.