D.W. Griffith liked filming women trapped in ambushed cabins, alongside men who see only one option left to help her,
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| The Lesser Evil (1912) |
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| The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1913) |
only to be stopped when armed reinforcements arrived. You can also see it The Birth of a Nation (1915), where the trapped southern belle just misses having her father bash her head in with a pistol butt.
John Ford apparently played an uncredited Klansman in that movie. 14 years later, he'd film Stagecoach:
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| Image Source: blu-ray.com |
where we get the same situation and interventionist outcome, with the uncomfortable solidification of the "men know what's best for the women folk" dynamic intact. Homage to Griffith, reuse of a suspense-raising trope, or both?
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