Review of The Searchers (1956) by Tony P — 16 Apr 2018

Another 5* western. I admit it is the film genre that I seem to award the best ratings but The Searchers truly is a great.

Made back in 1956 in glorious Technicolor, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne as the lead actor in his best performance I have seen (he made so many films, many I have still to watch).

I was memorised by the Spaghetti Westerns brought to mainstream attention with the Dollars trilogy starring Clint Eastwood so this is one of the final 'old school' western films.

John Ford films feature some great location scenery. The Searchers follows the pattern with spectacular Monument Valley photography. Monument Valley is an arrid environment between Utah and Arizona.

John Wayne commented that his collaborations with Ford were quite literally like living in the western era. It must have been a logistical nightmare shooting big budget productions in such locations!

For years I assumed that the premise of the film was John Wayne's character (Ethan Edwards) 'searching' for a close relative Debbie (Natalie Wood).

That is partly true but on watching the film has other elements such as the old fashioned (inertly racist) attitudes of Ethan.

Ethan wants to murder Debbie it transpires not simply rescue her as he believes she has some kind of Stockholm syndrome brainwashing from her Comanche Indian captors. The search does take place over five years.

The film has gone on to influence so many other great filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese. The character of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) in Taxi Driver perhaps?

The film also employs some comedic moments to lower the tone of the serious racist messages explored.

The supporting cast are great in some of these sequences.

I can now understand why this film is rated so highly after all these years as perhaps the ultimate John Wayne film after Stagecoach.