An ex-Confederate soldier’s five-year search to find his niece, taken by Comanches after a raiding party murder the rest of his brother’s family.
The Searchers portrays a troubling and racist view of frontier life but its themes go far beyond bigotry. It follows a bitter wanderer who risks all to find his one remaining relative. Why did he leave all those years before, what happened during the war and why the obsession to find Debbie whom he barely knows and clearly assumes will have fully assimilated into the Comanche, a people he despises?
Ford gets a career-best performance from Wayne as he fully inhabits the complex character that is Ethan Edwards.
The cinematography in Monument Valley is stunning, a location Ford discovered when making Stagecoach in 1939, the film that catapulted Wayne to stardom. The director and actor made 14 films together. Hunter and Miles are excellent, and any moments of levity do not detract from the dark subjects at the heart of the narrative. Hunter died aged 42 due to an injury on a film set. Shame; he was good.
Notice the iconic bookending of the story with Ethan’s arrival and departure framed by the homestead door. A doorway that Edwards chooses not to cross. The Searchers is the best Western ever made and one of the best films. Get past the cowboys and Indians for a lesson in exceptional filmmaking.
“So we’ll find ’em in the end, I promise you. We’ll find ’em. Just as sure as the turnin’ of the earth”
Director: John Ford
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood, Ward Bond, Henry Brandon
PRIME | YOUTUBE
1 hour 59 min
