Nearly one year ago today, I offered my perspective on the Western by examining my problems with four classic films of the genre. And in writing that blog, I was partially inspired to devote an entire new series dissecting some films that many consider great that just didn’t work on that level for me. One such film is John Ford’s 1956 classic The Searchers, starring none other than the Western icon himself John Wayne.
So, to kick off this series, I want to delve into the redeeming qualities of the film before sharing what, in my humble opinion, holds it back from being a truly great piece of cinema. Certainly, there are things to like about this movie despite its age and style. But I have to ask…why isn’t The Searchers great? [NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “The Searchers.” You have been warned.] What’s It About After eight years away from home as a soldier (including in the Confederate Army), curmudgeon veteran Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas where his brother Aaron (Walter Coy) has a homestead. There resides Aaron’s wife Martha (Dorothy Jordan) and son Ben (Robert Lyden), and Ethan’s two nieces Lucy (Pippa Scott) and Debbie (Lana Wood). Despite being home, Ethan remains on edge after refusing to swear allegiance to the Texas Rangers and supposedly being wanted for an unknown crime. Not long after being back home, Ethan and several locals under the command of Rev. Captain Samuel Clayton (Ward Bond) ride off to return some stolen cattle only to discover that it was a ploy by the local indigenous Comanche population. Upon returning to the homestead, Ethan finds Aaron and his family murdered and Debbie and Lucy abducted by the Comanche. Thus, he sets off with Clayton and several Texas Rangers to retrieve his nieces. Throughout the journey, Ethan never tries to hide his overt hatred of and racial prejudice towards the indigenous people despite partnering with Debbie’s adoptive brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), who does not hide the fact from Ethan that he is one-eighth Cherokee. Over the course of five years on the trail, Ethan and Martin discover Lucy’s body brutally raped and murdered and Martin accidentally purchases a Comanche wife, among other misadventures. Five years after her initial capture, Ethan and Martin finally discover Debbie (Natalie Wood) at a fort in New Mexico. To Ethan’s dismay, Debbie has been living among the Comanche and expresses her desires to stay with them. Since Ethan would rather see his niece dead than living “with a buck,” he acts with the intention to shoot her but Martin intervenes and stops him. They are ambushed, Ethan is wounded, and they flee without Debbie. After returning back home, Ethan is confronted by Lieutenant Greenhill (Patrick Wayne) who informs him of the whereabouts of Scar (Henry Brandon), the Comanche chief who originally kidnapped Debbie. Just before Ethan and Clayton command a head-on assault of the camp, Martin successfully sneaks inside the camp and finds Debbie. In the ensuing chaos, Martin kills Scar to save Debbie before Ethan scalps Scar. In the wake of the battle, Ethan rides up to Debbie, puts her on his saddle, and they return to the ranch of Ethan’s neighbors the Jorgensens (John Qualen, Olive Carey, Vera Miles) whose cattle were stolen five years earlier. With Debbie and Martin safe, Ethan leaves the homestead alone. What’s Good About It As someone who’s not much of a fan of old Westerns (particularly John Ford’s take on the genre), I was surprisingly pleased with certain elements of The Searchers. For one, his direction for how to capture the verdant hills, rustic plateaus and barren deserts of the American West is on point. His eye, in combination with the cinematography work of Technicolor pioneer Winton C. Hoch (Joan of Arc, The Quiet Man), makes for the most aesthetically stunning and picturesque film of Ford’s career that I’ve seen. So, if nothing else, The Searchers is usually pretty nice to look at. What about on a story level? I’ll get to some of its pitfalls in the final section of today’s blog, but Ford’s take on the historical Wild West does have some nuance to it in comparison to some of his prior work like the 1939 film Stagecoach. In adapting Alan Le May’s novel, screenwriter Frank S. Nugent (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man) managed to not make John Wayne’s character a purely heroic character in the way that many leading men in the classic Westerns of Hollywood’s “Golden Age” were. Largely thanks to the disconcerting looks given towards Ethan Edwards by his mixed-race traveling companion Martin Pawley, the audience is given the impression that we can feel satisfied in never fully giving our sympathies over to Ethan’s plight. Aside from Wayne’s character, Ethan’s niece Debbie is given a sliver of something akin to a complex relationship with her uncle. Despite being captured by the Comanche as a little girl after they murdered her family, we find her years later as having integrated herself into the Native Americans’ society and way of life. Furthermore, she protests Ethan’s desire to rescue her and tries to assert her autonomy as a young adult who wants to remain with her adopted family. Admittedly, Ford and Nugent could’ve just made Debbie an innocent, mindless damsel-in-distress who lacked agency and was grateful for being “rescued” by her racist, curmudgeonly uncle. For that, I give them some props. If these things sound appealing to you, then The Searchers might just be the Western for you. But before watching it tonight, you should know about the film’s problematic elements as well. What’s Holding It Back While Ford never fully revokes blame or judgment off of Ethan’s shoulders, the story he tells never truly condemns him either. At the end of the day, despite the efforts of supporting characters (namely Martin Pawley) trying to steer him in the right direction Wayne’s veteran and gunslinger never has to answer for his wrongdoings. While you could argue that this is part of Ethan’s character work as a complex Western hero, I found this to be utterly disappointing given the potential of The Searchers to be a transitional film for acknowledging the horrific history between white settlers and Native Americans that’s ridden with murder, rape, and genocide perpetuated (mostly) by the former against the latter. Thus, Ford’s direction of this movie comes off as ultimately stuck in the 1950s rather than transcending them and becoming a truly timeless classic. But what disappoints me the most about The Searchers is how the story was told. While I understand why Ethan Edwards is the protagonist given the time when the movie was made, I firmly believe that if this was made nowadays you could tell a much more compelling story of the moral ambiguities of the American West with one fix to the screenplay: divide the time between Ethan’s search for Debbie and Debbie’s assimilation into the Comanche tribe. This simple tweak in perspective would provide an incredible amount of rich, thematic nuance that The Searchers desperately needs. Like other stories of cross-cultural understanding in Westerns (notably Dances with Wolves), telling this story through the eyes of Debbie and the Comanche’s slow-building mutual trust over the course of several years would have made Ford’s lack of forceful critique of Wayne’s vengeful Texan somewhat more forgivable. But couldn’t you say that Ford was simply a victim of time and thus ignorant of the crucial need for diversifying perspective in this way? Maybe, if he hadn’t made the film Cheyenne Autumn less than a decade later (coincidentally his final Western) where he made a conscious effort to empathize with the centuries-long plight of indigenous Americans at the hand of the land- and power-hungry white man. Clearly, he knew what to do but failed to do it in this film! That speaks volumes to the fact that (in my humble opinion) The Searchers doesn’t deserve the mainstream popularity and critical praise that it has received since it came out in the mid-1950s. Ultimately, I think that The Searchers can be viewed as an important film rather than a great one. Similar to the likes of Wes Craven’s Scream or the Wachowskis’ The Matrix, its technical prowess and legacy within the Western genre of its time makes it worth appreciating for historical and aesthetic purposes. However, the film’s commendable strengths simply do not make up for its substantive drawbacks as both a Western and a classic piece of Hollywood cinema. But maybe I’m wrong, and The Searchers is truly a cinematic masterpiece. I suppose you’ll have to convince me otherwise. 😊 What am I missing about John Ford’s The Searchers? Do you think it’s a great movie or do you agree that something’s holding it back from greatness? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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