<\/span><\/h2>\n\u201cThe Searchers\u201d is definitely the best of the Westerns that John Wayne made with director John Ford, and to most JW fans the best film the two of them made together, the movie growing in stature over the years to the point where it now regularly makes it into the top ten list of greatest films ever made.<\/p>\n
The centrepiece of \u201cThe Searchers\u201d is the magnificent portrayal by John Wayne of the embittered Ethan Edwards, returning to his brother’s home after having fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.<\/p>\n
Anyone expecting to see the steadfast, upright, morally correct individual that Wayne\u2019s screen persona is usually associated with is going to be severely disappointed.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t think of any other Wayne film made either before or after \u201cThe Searchers\u201d in which he shoots three men in the back, blasts out the eyes of a dead Comanche warrior, mutilates the corpse of the dead Comanche chief Scar, and attempts to murder one of his own relatives.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a snarling, angry, bigoted racist who wants to put a bullet into the brain of his niece, Debbie because she had the misfortune to be kidnapped and thus tainted by association with the Comanche tribe that took her away.<\/p>\n
She is no longer acceptable in white society so has to be eliminated and Ethan Edwards is up for the job, which is what makes \u201cThe Searchers\u201d unique in John Wayne\u2019s acting resume.<\/p>\n
As for Ford, one of the aspects of \u201cThe Searchers\u201d worth noting is the manner in which he continues to depict his Native American characters in a more positive light, in this case, the Comanche woman Look, and a continuation of the turning point in \u201cFort Apache\u201d when the director\u2019s onscreen attitude towards America\u2019s indigenous natives became more sympathetic.<\/p>\n
Some of the images from the sequence in which Ethan Edwards and Martin Pawley chance upon the corpse of Look in a Comanche village devastated by the cavalry bears comparison with some of the late 60s \/ early 70s liberal Westerns such as \u201cSoldier Blue\u201d and \u201cLittle Big Man\u201d.<\/p>\n
This film also finds John Ford questioning the role of the military in the \u2018settling\u2019 of the West and he doesn\u2019t pull any punches.<\/p>\n
The cavalry regiment that arrives in the nick of time at the end of \u201cStagecoach\u201d, flags flying gloriously in the wind, is now transformed into a ruthless band of cutthroats who kill in the name of Manifest Destiny, and it\u2019s up there on the big screen for all to see.<\/p>\n
The Native Americans in \u201cThe Searchers\u201d and in Ford\u2019s last Western, \u201cCheyenne Autumn\u201d, are no longer depicted as ciphers or silhouettes on the horizon. They are shown as real people with real lives and emotions, the characters in the film elevated in the storyline and sharing equal screen time with the white protagonists.<\/p>\nview from john fords point to the giant Merrick buttes, sandstone formations in the Monument valley<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOn a different note, the magnificence of Monument Valley is shown probably at its best in \u201cThe Searchers\u201d. The silhouettes of the towering buttes and the dark orange of the desert have come to personify the cowboy film over the years since Ford first went there in the late 1930s to film \u201cStagecoach\u201d, the director single-handedly developing a cinematic shorthand for depicting the West.<\/p>\n
The landscape hides the marauding Native Americans just before they snake along the slopes surrounding Ethan and his search party.<\/p>\n
The valley then reduces the size of the individuals in pursuit of Debbie until they are rendered almost invisible to the naked eye by a backdrop that has not changed in millions of years, and will remain in place long after Ethan and his compatriots have turned to dust.<\/p>\n
Ford\u2019s direction perfectly encapsulates the isolation and unforgiving savagery of the wilderness as exemplified by the location itself.<\/p>\n
There are so many special moments to celebrate that will forever stay in the memory of those who revere \u201cThe Searchers\u201d, and would take quite a while to list, but here\u2019s a few to be going on with<\/p>\n
\nEthan\u2019s sister-in-law, Martha, emerging from the cabin at the opening of the film into the bright sunlight just as he appears riding out of the magnificent landscape of Monument valley<\/li>\n the wonderfully understated moment when Ward Bond as the Reverend Clayton pretends to ignore the obvious feelings that Ethan and Martha have for each other<\/li>\n the look of sorrow on Ethan\u2019s face when he realises later on that he won\u2019t get back in time to save his brother\u2019s family from an Indian attack<\/li>\n the marauding Comanches suddenly emerging from the landscape as they snake along the slopes of the valley surrounding Ethan and the search party<\/li>\n the look of pure contempt suffused with pity on Ethan\u2019s face for the white captive of the Comanches who mistakes a doll for her dead child<\/li>\n the iconic moment when Ethan lifts Debbie high into the air then tells her, \u201clet\u2019s go home Debbie\u201d, a scene that still makes the hair stand up on the back of the neck no matter how many times it is viewed<\/li>\n and finally, the lone figure of Ethan standing in the cabin doorway as Debbie is welcomed back into the fold, Wayne holding his right arm in homage to actor Harry Carey Sr. before walking away in search of heart and soul as the cabin door closes behind him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nThe film has influenced numerous other directors such as Martin Scorsese, Paul Schraeder and Steven Spielberg. George Lucas appropriated part of the story for the first Star Wars film \u2013 John Wayne\u2019s character Ethan Edwards (Hans Solo) helps a young man, Marty, played by Jeffrey Hunter (Luke Skywalker) to go looking for Marty\u2019s half-sister Debbie (Princess Leia) who has been kidnapped by the cruel Comanche warrior Scar (Darth Vader).<\/p>\n
In \u201cAttack of the Clones\u201d Lucas even recreates shot-for-shot the scene towards the end of \u201cThe Searchers\u201d in which Marty rescues Debbie from the clutches of Scar.<\/p>\n
There also aren\u2019t many other films that can lay claim to have inspired a number one hit single, Buddy Holly and the Crickets recording \u201cThat\u2019ll Be the Day\u201d after seeing the film and taking note of Ethan\u2019s catchphrase.<\/p>\n
With a wonderful supporting cast of Ford stock company actors including John Qualen, Harry Carey Jr., Ken Curtis and Hank Worden as the simple-minded Mose, \u201cThe Searchers\u201d is a triumph for all concerned.<\/p>\n
When it comes to either the films of John Wayne, or the films of John Ford, or the Western genre in particular, it truly does not get any better than this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Welcome to the second part of our article on the films John Wayne starred in for celebrated director John Ford. You can catch up with Part I of John Wayne & John Ford movies. They Were Expendable (1946) Despite John … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5828"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5838,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions\/5838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostlywesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}