Closing out the month of June with another John Wayne film, for John Wayne month, brings one of Wayne's top best performances of a lifetime. The Searcher's like most John Wayne and John Ford movies have great visuals as well as great cinematography, this film shows a much more dangerous look of the West. People tend who are not fans of John Wayne or have never grown up with John Wayne would of course tend to say that The Duke can't act, but I begged to differ but also disagree because they haven't seen The Searchers and more importantly, if you haven't understood the Searchers or its meaning you need to rethink your life and watch this greatest Western of all time.
In this revered Western, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas after the Civil War. When members of his brother's family are killed or abducted by Comanches, he vows to track down his surviving relatives and bring them home. Eventually Edwards gets words that his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) is alive, and, along with her adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffery Hunter), he embarks on a dangerous mission to find her, journeying deep into Comanche territory.
When you think of the many John Wayne films you've ever seen in terms of the Western genre to like The Son's of Katie Elder, Big Jake, True Grit, Rio Bravo or even Stagecoach and let’s throw in McLintock, there all Westerns in which Wayne plays the protagonist that's a blend of both bad**s character or just your typical hero who gets the girl by the end of the film. If I had to explain anyone, John Wayne's character in the Searchers, he's defiantly playing the Anti-Hero in the film a man whose defiantly not a good example of a hero but someone you want on your side by the end of the film, moreover this was a different type of John Wayne film that we as an audience member never really quite expected especially since I grew up with great classics like The Son's of Katie Elder, McLintock, even some of his war films, like my first time watching the film I was told mostly through my brother that Wayne plays a racist and I never really expected him to be that type of person, furthermore Ford himself wanted Wayne for the role of Ethan Edwards as well as putting massive trust in Wayne considering this would massive departure from his typical clean-cut hero and Wayne himself embraced this as a challenge and to me stands as one of his greatest performances for sole reasons is that we've never been able to see that in many of his films ever again, and I may not of seen all of his films I don't have a clear memory especially some of his final films besides the Shootist but I doubt he ever played this type of Anti-Hero ever again. A lot of people I've known through the years and coming off of hearing Quentin Tarantino's review of the Searchers, they all claim that they hated Jeffery Hunter's performance in the movie for which sure at times it becomes cringe, but deep down that's what Hunter is supposed to be in the movie, like, they man is essentially a child who doesn't know a whole lot about the world until Wayne's character comes along and through a gruesome sense of bullying as well as not accepting him at first both men come to respect one another but, more importantly you need this type of dynamic between Wayne's Ethan's racist aspects of life, too Hunter's childish/faith in humanity point of view because if you just had Ethan go after his niece alone he would of became a pure hated villain through the course of the movie, just somebody who would of course would go insane by the end of it, and so, that's the reasons as to why Hunter chose to travel along with him because even he can sense Ethan's hatred and blood lust for which is the reason why Hunter is the character that humanizes Wayne's character through the end of the movie and both Hunter and Wayne are excellent together furthermore surprising why they didn't work together by the end of the Searchers production or made more movies together though Wayne and William Holden only made one movie together so, I would imagine it's probably ego sense, for which in all seriousness would make the logic sense if you ask me. The other thing in what makes the Searchers such a memorable movie is that it's beautify shot in Monument Valley aka Arizona/Utah border and some of those shots at night time is so beautiful that I can't stop and enjoy the colors of the film, and I'm not sure if they also shoot some of the close ups in the back lot of Hollywood, though I would doubt it because there's a documentary where Ford and the crew literally shot the film in Monument Valley and even in Elk Island National Park up in Alberta, Canada for some of the cold scenes but I still say that they for certain shot this entirely in the outdoors and it to me looks fantastic because you can see the beauty of the desert and the huge landmarks especially some of the wide angle lenses, they used. And if you look up some of the imagery of Monument Valley you would agree that it would most certainly be a sight to see in case you can't make it to the Grand Canyon, and really having re-watched this great film I now put Monument Valley as my bucket list for sights I want to visit before I die. I still haven't seen all of John Ford's films but I would certainly say that The Searchers is defiantly one of Ford's masterpieces that still stands the test of time, for many and gillion reasons is that it holds a ton of themes of racial tensions between our fellow man that we still have to this day, but more importantly it has the important theme of vengeance as well as the obsession of achieving bloodlust as well as how much of your own humanity that you would lose in the process and even by end of it all what do you do now once the vengeance is all over and Ford explores these themes really well and still holds an important aspect on all of us now because we still have some of these themes as well as hate, that we can't seem to let go of. So, if you ever have a copy of The Searchers or purchase the film for streaming, I will highly recommend watching this film as well as would rank it among Clint Eastwood's Western Classic Unforgiven as the greatest Westerns of all time.
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