John Ford’s The Searchers Review

The Searchers was released at the peak of the western in cinematic history. There were great westerns before and after this movie, but there are few that exemplify the genre as well as The Searchers. However, it wouldn’t be my first recommendation to someone who is new to the western. It has the all the tropes, but is layered in a different, more complex way. The Indians are our bad guys of course, but our hero may not be the hero we want him to be. It was shot in Monument Valley and represents the gigantic sense of the West yet feels small and more personal. It contains the final shootout, the good versus the evil, but it isn’t really about these things at all. I enjoy this movie and find it a great way to spend two hours. Why am I so hesitant in recommending this movie to watch as a representation of a genre?

After years away from home, after fighting in the Civil War, Ethan Edwards, (John Wayne) finally returns to his family. Before long, Comanche Indians raid the family home, murder his brother, brother’s wife, and their son and abduct their daughters Debbie and Lucy. Ethan takes Debbie’s adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), with him on a ten year journey to find them.  

You might think the plot sounds cliche for a western. It is, but this movie doesn’t let you walk away from it with the sense of happiness like many of them. This movie blurs the line between good guy and bad guy in a way many others do not. “It’s a John Wayne movie!” My grandfather used to say, perhaps insinuating that meant it was great. Every time we watched a Wayne flick, he was the unequivocal hero, at least to me he was. His legend may live larger in our minds than what it is in this movie. The protagonist of our movie, Ethan Edwards, is one of the most complex in western, or maybe even movie history. Usually, we are encouraged to seek out a character to get behind, to hope in, someone to capture our heart. Ethan isn’t supposed to have heart. He’s a deeply troubled, flawed, bitter, sometimes psychotic person. His character is as racist as he is courageous. He learns the language and culture of the Comanche in order to use it against them in heinous ways. He treats the only other person which will take this journey with him with hesitation because he’s one eighth Cherokee. He considers killing the person he has been obsessively searching for years because she may have become more “buck” than human. Every time we are about to cheer for this character he does or says something that makes you do the opposite. We want him to rescue Debbie but we wouldn’t be against him dying in the process. 

Whatever you may think of the main character, you cannot deny the great visuals brought to the screen by Ford. A director famous for not using storyboards makes it seem as though he planned shots in this movie for years. Ethan slowly making his way by horseback towards the family home is shot through the doorway, framing his entrance but also giving us the sense of what it feels like to come home after years of being away. We want to be inside, home, safe. Contrast that shot against another a few scenes later when Ethan is looking into a doorway at the dead body of his nephew. We want to be outside, safe. These shots help turn the tone of the movie over and over and it works. Ford also gives us a ten year journey in the span of two hours. His editing in the last half of the movie accomplishes this task almost perfectly. After being gone for a long time Martin sends a letter to back home to his love, catching her up on the last few years. Her reading of the letter cuts back and forth with flash backs from Ethan and herself and serve the story and passage of time equally. Travels are explained, and with a dissolve separating our searchers with a hot desert sun, we are all caught up. Great costuming and makeup come in to play here as well, giving us a grey haired Ethan who has obviously spent years on the hunt. 

Everything in this movie is complicated, it’s near as clear cut as many other westerns. The good guy in white, the bad guy in black, the good guy wins in the end. We expect it and are usually comfortable with it. Let the events unfold as we get to our inevitable conclusion. The premise seems like an generic norm, but it is a backdrop for some of the better character stories told. The movie doesn’t go down easy, it isn’t a fun movie with a few serious issues. It’s a serious movie injected with fun because without it we may just go insane watching it. This makes it hard to recommend to an average movie goer as well as a western fan. It’s hard to walk away from a movie feeling so down when in the end, it all turned out alright. We get a sour feeling, not just from the main characters actions but also from dismissing them in search for a hero.