The Searchers (film)

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The Searchers

Directed by	John Ford
Produced by	C.V. Whitney
Written by	Alan Le May (novel) Frank S. Nugent
Starring	John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter Natalie Wood
Music by	Stan Jones (title song) Max Steiner
Cinematography	Winton C. Hoch
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	March 13, 1956 (U.S. release)
Running time	119 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Searchers is a 1956 epic Western film directed by John Ford, which tells the story of Ethan Edwards, a bitter, middle-aged loner and Civil War veteran played by John Wayne, who spends years looking for his abducted niece. The movie was adapted by Frank S. Nugent from the novel by Alan Le May. It is a very influential film, inspiring other westerns as well as dramas, science fiction, and even Bollywood films.

Much of it was filmed in Monument Valley, Utah. Additional scenes were filmed in Mexican Hat, Utah, and in Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park, Los Angeles.

The film was shot in the VistaVision widescreen process.

1 Plot
2 Influence
3 Real-life inspiration
4 Critical response
5 Trivia
6 Worldwide release dates
7 Analysis
8 Primary Cast
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The year is 1868. Ethan returns from the American Civil War, where he fought for the Confederacy, to his brother's house in rural Texas. No one knows what he's been doing for the past three years (since the war ended), but no one asks. There are hints that Ethan has possibly been up to no good. Shortly after his arrival, a Comanche raid leaves his brother and sister-in-law dead, his two nieces abducted, and the family homestead burned down. With his brother’s adopted son, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), who is part Indian part white, Ethan pursues the Comanches to rescue the girls.

Ethan soon finds the raped and murdered body of the older girl, Lucy. They continue to search for the other girl, Debbie, for years afterwards. During that time, she grows into adolescence and is married to Scar (Henry Brandon), the chief of that tribe of Comanches. Scar is presented as the mirror image of Ethan from the other side of the cultural divide. At first, Ethan doesn’t want to rescue Debbie; he wants her dead for sleeping with a Comanche. Debbie is defiled in his eyes. Martin tags along to stop Ethan from killing her. After years of searching, they and the Texas Rangers find Debbie. Ethan has a change of heart and does not hurt the girl. Scar is killed by Martin. Ethan returns Debbie to her relatives and then walks away, the door to the family home closing behind him.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Influence

The Searchers has influenced films as diverse as Taxi Driver, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Dances with Wolves, and Saving Private Ryan. David Lean watched the film repeatedly while preparing for Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to help him get a sense of how to shoot a landscape. The entrance of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers across a vast prairie is echoed clearly in the across-the-desert entrance of Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia. Sergio Leone, a noted Ford admirer, mentioned The Searchers as one of his favorite films and referenced it in a key scene of Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). It was also referenced in a similar scene in the Bollywood film Sholay. The influence of this film on George Lucas can be seen in his Star Wars films. For example, in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the burning of Luke Skywalker's home parallels visually and narratively the burning of the homestead in The Searchers; also the framing of the shots through the opening of Obi-Wan's cave (when Luke first meets him) directly matches the framing of the screen shots of Ethan Edwards' reunion with his niece, Debbie. Another direct quote comes in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones in the scene in which Anakin enters the village of the sandpeople.

Other films, such as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (which references the final shot of The Searchers), show direct influence as does work in other genre, such as Jonathan Lethem's novel "Girl in Landscape" which cites the film as inspiration in its jacket copy. John Wayne's catchphrase in the film, "That'll be the day", inspired Buddy Holly to write his hit song of the same name.

[edit] Real-life inspiration

The story of the original novel version of The Searchers is often said to have been inspired by the 1836 kidnapping of nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker by Comanche warriors who raided her family's home at Fort Parker. She spent twenty-five years with the Comanche, married a war chief, and had three children, only to be "rescued" against her will by the Texas Rangers. James W. Parker, Uncle of Cynthia Ann, spent much of his life and fortune in what became an obsession of searching for her. This certainly matches the obsession of Ethan in the movie in searching for his niece, as James Parker did Cynthia.

Author Alan Le May studied 64 cases of late 19th century child captivities in Texas while researching his novel. His surviving research notes at UCLA point to only one model for the character who goes in search of his missing relatives: Brit Johnson, an African-American teamster. While the book is ostensibly the source for the movie, the facts of Cynthia Ann Parker and her Uncle's search far more match the movie than Brit Johnson's ransom of his family.

In 1864 Johnson's wife and two of his children were captured by a party of Kiowas and Comanches in the Elm Creek raid in Young County, Texas. The following year, Johnson reportedly ransomed his family from the Comanches in exchange for seven ponies. After that, he continued to search for other captives, inquiring at military posts, attending Indian councils, and visiting Comanche villages. He undertook these missions voluntarily and never asked for any payment. Johnson was one of very few private individuals who apparently succeeded in ransoming captives; most were recovered by federal Indian agents working together with friendly tribal chiefs. Although some historians dismiss Johnson's story as mere legend, several eyewitness accounts lend it credence. He was killed by Kiowas while hauling freight in 1871.

[edit] Critical response

The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress.
The film was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry.
The Searchers is often cited as a candidate for the greatest film of all time.
- E.g. The Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films ever made:
  - In 1972, The Searchers was voted in eighteenth place.
  - It was in fifth place in 1992.
  - In 2002 it was in eleventh place.
The Searchers is a favorite of Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ramesh Sippy, James Robert Baker and John Milius.
Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, Akira Kurosawa, Frank Capra, Elia Kazan and Samuel Fuller have all described Ford as the world's greatest living director.
Entertainment Weekly ranked The Searchers as the thirteenth greatest movie of all time, as well as the greatest western of all time.

[edit] Trivia

Ford originally wanted to cast Fess Parker, whose performance as Davy Crockett on television had helped spark a national craze, in the Jeffrey Hunter role but Walt Disney, to whom Parker was under contract, refused to allow it, according to Parker's videotaped interview for the Archive of American Television. Parker notes that this was by far his single worst career reversal.

[edit] Worldwide release dates

[edit] Analysis

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The Searchers can be viewed as a simplistic action story about two men’s hunt for Debbie and revenge for the death of their family, but this would neglect both its humor and its subtle explorations of masculinity and racism.^[1] The film begins with a frontier cabin door opening to the wilderness, this scene presents the visual motif of the framed doorway and threshold between the two worlds. The interior represents civilized values and the settled family, whereas the outside represents that of a man’s world. The black silhouette of a woman moves from the darkness, with a shot from a forward-tracking camera, through to the door to see the sunlit landscape. She notices a man approaching, in the center of the frame, riding in from the desert. This type of shot is typical for a Western, although its use in this film is exemplary. Furthermore, as Ethan Edwards arrives home the background soundtrack Lorena is playing. This song is rumored to be a favorite of civil war soldiers and is also a reminder of the lost love they have left behind during the wartime. Its use in the film is symbolic, given the plot of the film, since it has a reference to the family members who have died during the Comanche raid. It may also serve as an expression of Ethan's apparent romantic love for his sister-in-law, Martha, whom he hasn't seen for years.

The Searchers conforms to the codes and conventions of a Western, with the desert landscape, small close-knit community and also the point that cowboys live in an age that, whether good or bad, one follows a strict code of honor in which one always tells the truth, never cheats an honest fellow, and tip a hat to the ladies. This film deals with themes that include racism, individuality, the American character, and the opposition between civilization and the untamed wilderness.

In The Searchers, the protagonist, Ethan Edwards has his own strong beliefs. ’Living with the Comanches ain’t being alive’ he insists and sees no moral dilemma in murdering the kidnapped girl once he finds her. The film's greatest virtue is the single-minded determination of Ethan (Wayne) in his quest for Debbie (Natalie Wood). Ethan's 5-year journey is propelled by his hatred of the Comanche and his desire for revenge (and perhaps justice).

Certainly a contributing factor to The Searchers' popularity is the fact that Ford's trademark calm style and wide shots are almost thrown to the wind in this film: it contains perhaps Ford's most radical camera movements and setups. Peter Bogdanovich said of The Searchers that "the bold, vigorous strokes of The Searchers...require more artistry than the direction of The Informer." Another powerful factor is the famous depth of character, the best example being John Wayne's actions in the twist ending.

The film can be interpreted as a subtle critique of the sort of Westerns that Wayne normally appeared in (although Wayne himself would probably have disagreed). Wayne's character, Ethan Edwards, is shown as a brooding and disturbed racist ("...she's been with a buck!"). The West is shown as a threatening, even slightly sinister place. Unlike some revisionist Westerns of the 1950s (e.g. Broken Arrow) the Native Americans are shown in a negative light, massacring white settlers, sexually assaulting them, and abducting their children. However, the situation is highly ambivalent. The viewer is progressively made to question what may have provoked this violence as the screenplay and Ford's subtle directing cast a shadow of doubt over the innocence of the white settlers. Ethan (Wayne) repeatedly commits sadistic acts that horrify even the old veterans of Indian wars riding with him. For example, Ethan takes pleasure in desecrating the tomb of an ennemy and disfiguring his body, then, he shocks the commander of the Texas Rangers by shooting Comanches in the back. In a pathetic scene disguised by Ford as comic relief, the otherwise sympathetic Martin Pawley (Hunter) also shows a dark side. After constantly complaining about "Look", the overweight Indian maiden he was forced to marry and bring along on the journey, Martin kicks her in the rear after she beds down next to him, and the woman tumbles down a small dune. She understands the message and leaves Martin and Ethan but, despite all the mistreatment, the humble woman, one of the two most innocent and sincere figures in the entire film (with Debbie), remains a loyal friend and precious guide and leaves indications that lead the "Searchers" to a major clue in their quest. Later, Martin finds her dead body slain for no reason by the U.S. Cavalry and this raises his first doubts about who is "good" and who is "evil". It is a major plot point after which the viewer continues to be confronted with these doubts and is forced to wonder whether the main protagonists are really victims, or whether the story is seen from the point of view of the real murderers? The unanswered question becomes the main mechanism of suspense driving the entire storyline towards its paroxystic conclusion as Martin (who matures throughout the film) begins to suspect that Ethan's search for Debbie may be motivated by a drive to radically and permanently "cleanse" her from "being with a buck", rather than bringing her home. Ford's direction of Wayne (out of whom he obtained a rare performance of an ambiguous maybe even psychopathic caracter) maintains the suspense until the very last moment: will Ethan kill his niece or save her?

Years before Ralph Nelson's Soldier Blue or Arthur Penn's Little Big Man, this is also one of the very first westerns that depicts Native Americans as victims in two scenes of genocide, one explicit (the aftermath of a punitive raid by the U.S. Cavalry), then another, more subtle, in the final action scene, which is nothing less than a massacre comitted by the main protagonists of the film themselves (a very close scrutiny of the long and fast-paced travelling shot of Ethan and the other horsemen charging through the Comanche village, shows mainly unarmed women and children fleeing the attackers shooting at random). These interpretations of "The Searchers" (expressed among others by Martin Scorsese) can easily be evidenced by comparing the differences between the film and the original novel by Alan Le May who never questions the violence against Native Americans and whose simplistic caracterization of Martin Pawley and Ethan Edwards are somewhat comparable to stereotypes of heroic Indian fighters in pulp litterature.

It has also been noted that the older characters mostly have Biblical names (further true in the novel, in which Ethan was called Amos--a change specifically made by the filmmakers because Amos 'n' Andy made the name seem too humorous), while none of the younger characters have such names.

[edit] Primary Cast

John Wayne : Ethan Edwards
Jeffrey Hunter : Martin Pawley
Vera Miles : Laurie Jorgensen
Ward Bond : Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton
Natalie Wood : Debbie Edwards (older)
John Qualen : Lars Jorgensen
Olive Carey : Mrs. Jorgensen
Henry Brandon : Chief Cicatrice (Scar)
Ken Curtis : Charlie McCorry
Harry Carey, Jr. : Brad Jorgensen
Antonio Moreno : Emilio Figueroa
Hank Worden : Mose Harper
Beulah Archuletta : Wild Goose Flying in the Night Sky (Look)

John Wayne : Ethan Edwards	Jeffrey Hunter : Martin Pawley	Vera Miles : Laurie Jorgensen	Ward Bond : Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton
Natalie Wood : Debbie Edwards