In 1956 when I was nine, I took no notice of this Film, probably because I was not a big fan of westerns nor was my mom who I saw most of my childhood films with. My movie going youth of that year was busy and full seeing many films some of which are still favorites of mine like The Man Who Knew Too Much. Written on The Wind, The Rose Tattoo and The Girl Can't Help also are situated comfortably in my memory. The list is long. I was more of a sci-fi horror movie kid than a cowboys and Indians boy with the exception of Davy Crockett, The King of The Wild Frontier who ruled over our black and white tv, otherwise Westerns would generally bore me.
Sometimes I would go to kiddie matinees at my neighborhood Loew's to see horror films but generally I was at the mercy of what my mom, sister or uncle would want to see. Happily our choices usually meshed and I grew up with no taboos on what movies I could watch. I still scratch my head over the omission of “The Searchers” from my childhood viewing. And its a good thing too, because I have no doubt that some of the scenes in the film would have scared the crap out of me, as much as a good horror film would.
It took me a long time to finally catch up with this John Ford masterwork about revenge and redemption. The most recent viewing was the glorious blu ray edition that almost poked my eyes out. It was nearly 3-D in its clarity and beauty, thanks to the VistaVision and technicolor process that Ford used. This way of working allowed Ford to showcase his beloved Monument Valley as never before, and allowed him to filled the big screen with magnificent vistas, landscapes and action sequences that still hold and amaze our attention and feelings to this day. Some complain about the few “fake” studio set ups, a campfire, a beautiful scene in a forest with snow falling covering the fake trees, and an outdoor view of the cabin bathed in an orange glow, the door opened so we can see inside. Personally I had no problems with them, I actually found them handsome and charming in their handmade studio look, reminding me of dioramas, and a fond hello to how films use to be made.
Adapted from a novel by Alan Le May and based on a true story the film opens and closes with doors that open to the vast western vistas outside the cabin of the Edwards family. A figure rides up and its John Wayne 3 years after the Civil War where he fought on the side of the confederates and is now home to visit his family consisting of his brother, his wife and 3 children, two girls and a boy.
There is also the adopted son who was recused by Wayne as a child after his family was killed by Indians. He is played by the very handsome Jeffrey Hunter whose character is of mixed background and this is a bone in Wayne's throat that will continue to plaque him and us throughout the film. Without words or dialogue, Ford shows us the feelings between Wayne and his sister in law played by Dorothy Jordan, they were obviously once in love with each other, but we don't know what came between them to end their romance. Was it the war, hardships, lover's quarrels that pushed Her to marry his brother.
Feelings are sometimes silent in this film as in many of Ford's movies. Wayne is seen as a loving uncle to his nieces and nephew with the giving of gifts and warm embraces, except for Martin Pawley his adopted nephew who he disdains with nasty and racist comments setting up one of the intense relationships in the film that will continue to the end of the movie.
Wayne's racism and hatred of the Comanche tribe is violent and disturbing especially after his family is wiped out in a horrible attack where they are all killed except for the two young girls who are abducted and sets the revenge and the ride into hell in motion to find the two abducted girls. His main focus is on the Nawyecka band of Comanches led by its leader Scar played well by Henry Brandon. Wayne could also be called Scar, not for any visible ones but for the scars that are in his heart and soul.
There are vast stretches of violence against the “Indians” and from them which complicates our feelings over and over again. This is not a revisionist look at our terrible history against the Native Americans that was still in the future, but Ford is aware of our country's treatment of them and shows the violence brought on them by the soldiers especially in one raw scene in a Comanche camp where many of the women and children are murdered.
Ford wisely does not show us any extreme violence, its all played off screen, but he leaves traces of the horror with fragments of bloody dresses and a child's doll, we don't need more. The other disturbing scene of racism and violence involves the native American actor Beulah Archuletta who plays the inadvertently acquired “wife” of Jeffrey Hunter who has acquired her thinking he was buying only a blanket at a market. In a few uncomfortable scenes she becomes the butt of Wayne & Hunter's jokes and abuse which ends with Hunter kicking her down a hill when she tries to sleep next to him. This scene has been called out my many including hard fans and admirers of the movie including Martin Scorsese who in a published review called it “nasty and cruel” and it is.
Ford was the great visual poet of American cinema, his cinematic eye was visually graceful and dramatic filling his movies with memorable scenes and images that remain for me. A recurring theme in his films is the family and it streams through many of his films including “The Searchers”. Usually there were conflicts within the family structure sometimes caused by outside influences like the depression, wars, politics and other social injustices along with bad blood between family members that sometimes would get resolved before the final credits.
There was also his movie family that consisted of actors and actresses that he used over and over again in his films the most notable one being John Wayne who made over a dozen films with Ford and in “The Searchers” he gives a tremendous performance which might be the best of the year. Ford was famous for his stock company using not only actors but behind the camera crew over and over throughout his career. The film ends as it opens with a door opened to allow some of the characters to enter with the exception of John Wayne who stands there alone and who then slowly walks away from his past. The end. Best film of 1956.
