NFR Project: 'The Searchers' (1956)

NFR Project: “The Searchers”

Dir: John Ford

Scr: Frank S. Nugent

Pho: Winton C. Hoch

Ed: Jack Murray

Premiere: May 16, 1956

119 min.

It’s the best American film ever made. Fight me.

It’s also the most subversive. Within the framework of a genre film, a Western, director John Ford created an exposé of the dark and violent undercurrent beneath the myth of American progress.

To do so, he had to cast the most stereotyped actor of his day, John Wayne, to play completely against type, as a haunted and vengeful man, a racist and a bigot, obsessed with destroying what he could not rescue. Wayne lived up to the challenge, creating the character Ethan Edwards as a dark and complex figure who bears damnation in the hell of his feelings. He is the “hero” of The Searchers, and at the end he is the only one who loses everything. He is America, condemned to savage glory.

Though set on the West Texas plains, Ford shot this extraordinary film in Monument Valley, Arizona, far off in the red-rock desert. He used the near-mythic grandeur of the place to set off the tiny human figures traversing it. It is 1868, and Ethan Edwards comes home to his brother’s ranch belatedly after serving with the Confederacy in the Civil War. He has gold, and a medal he gives to his 8-year-old niece Debbie. It is obvious there is unspoken attraction between Ethan and his brother’s wife.

The Texas Rangers, led by a Reverend/Captain Sam Clayton (Ward Bond at his best), show up and enlist him and others to go on a hunt for Native Americans thought to have stolen some cattle. The men ride off, by the theft appears to be a ruse. The Indians attack Ethan’s brother’s place, killing him, his wife, and their son. Two girls, sisters Debbie and Lucy, are abducted.

What follows is a relentless decade-long search for Debbie (Lucy is presumably raped, tortured, and killed offscreen early on). Ethan vows to get Debbie back from her abductor, Comanche chief Scar (Henry Brandon). He begins following leads all over the West, from the mountains of Colorado to the canyons of Mexico. He is joined in his pursuit by Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunnter), his adopted nephew and part Cherokee. As time goes on Martin learns that Ethan doesn’t want to save Debbie; he wants to kill her. He considers her an Indian now, and wants her dead. Martin swears to save Debbie when the time comes.

Ethan and Martin break off on their quest during winters, which is when a romance sparks between Martin and Laurie (Vera Miles). Their long-delayed romance serves as comic relief for the film, and symbolizes Martin’s integration into society, despite his Cherokee ancestry, a feat Ethan cannot duplicate.

Debbie (now Natalie Wood) is found, and is at first reluctant to join the whites again. The second time they track her down, she assents to go with them. Ethan finds her first, chases her, grabs her, lifts her in his arms – and says, “Let’s go home, Debbie.” He returns her to civilization and then, ignored, he walks slowly away from the camera. He is a mythic figure, at the cost of his humanity.

The chase has made Ethan savage, no better than his enemies. He slaughters buffalo when he sees them, to deny Indians food. (Blink and you’ll miss a tombstone that tells us Ethan’s mother was killed by Comanches.) When he finds his enemy dead, he scalps him. The West needs men like Ethan to make things happen, even and perhaps especially when he is consumed with fear and hatred. However, once his savage nature is given free rein, and the goal is accomplished, he is no longer needed and must be exiled from society. He has seen and done too much. He has shown us the genocidal savagery behind the mask of Manifest Destiny, and he cannot be forgiven for it.

Every detail of the film is precisely planned; the visuals are strikingly beautiful – Winton C. Hoch’s cinematography is outstanding. All the Ford stock company players are here – there’s John Qualen, and Olive Carey, and Harry Carey Jr., and Ken Curtis, and especially Hank Worden as the disturbed but benign Mose Harper. Max Steiner’s score is top-notch. The entire experience is mesmerizing.

There’s not a wasted frame. Everything illustrates character or advances the plot, and most of the time it does both at the same time. The film rewards frequent viewings; there is telling detail on every inch of the screen. Ford loves his characters and gives them dimension and individuality, letting the camera look at them on long takes. For a real granular examination of the film, read Tim Dirks’s essay on it here. Scott Allen Nollen’s essay at theNational Film Registry is fine as well.

Ethan’s need for revenge is implacable, but time moves on and so do other people. Ethan forgives Debbie and himself just long enough to ensure an equivocally happy ending. Does the white man have to eliminate those who came before him? Is the only way to move forward to kill and burn as well? And what does that do to a man’s soul?

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Ten Commandments.