John Ford's enduring milestone (his first sound western) was the film that Orson Welles studied over and over before embarking on Citizen Kane.  Dudley Nichols'  adaptation of Ernest Haycox's Collier's magazine story "Stage to Lordsburg" was the first of many Ford films shot in Monument Valley, then one of the least accessible locations in the southwest. By 1970 the original negative had been lost but John Wayne, who played the star-making role of Ringo, donated his personal 35mm print which has become the basis of all subsequent releases.