The first time I heard about The Searchers, the 1956 Western by John Ford, it was mentioned as the best film of all time. At the time, I was rather sceptical towards all those critics pronouncing the best films of all time and I had to wait a few more years before I understood the real importance of The Searchers. Soon after I had watched Banović Strahinja, the 1981 medieval drama shot in the former Yugoslavia, I read a few articles that claimed that the story had been obviously inspired by Ford's film. The story was actually inspired by a 15th-century Serbian epic poem and, since it is rather hard to imagine John Ford taking such an exotic and obscure inspiration for his Westerns, another conclusion must be drawn. The story of The Searchers probably has a lot of resemblance with many similar stories, myths and legends told in different centuries on different continents—it is one of those rare films that actually looks like a part of the universal collective unconscious. That is the reason why this film is so important, and why it is considered to be one of the best films by John Ford but also one of the best films made in this century.
The story begins in Texas in 1868. Three years after the end of the Civil War, former Confederate soldier Ethan Edwards (played by John Wayne), is wandering through the wastelands. A brief visit to his brother Aaron (played by Walter Coy) is interrupted when a group of Texas Rangers, led by Reverend/Captain Samuel Johnson Clayton (played by Ward Bond), comes to recruit volunteers in order to pursue a group of cattle thieves. Ethan joins the party, together with Martin Pawley (played by Jeffrey Hunter), Aaron's part-Cherokee adopted son, and they follow the trail until they find the cattle slaughtered. They soon realise that the cattle were stolen by a Comanche war party led by Chief Scar (played by Henry Brandon) only to lure the men out of their farms and leave their families unprotected. The Rangers rush back but it is too late for Aaron's family, which is savagely massacred, with the sole surviving little girl Debbie (played by Lana Wood) taken captive. Ethan and Martin go after the Comanches in order to rescue little Debbie and take revenge. But Chief Scar and his band prove elusive and the two men spend years roaming the West in a fruitless search. The younger Martin is actually ready to quit, settle down and marry his sweetheart Laurie Jorgensen (played by Vera Miles). The only thing that prevents him is Ethan and his ever-growing hatred towards the Comanches, a hatred that might even lead to killing Debbie, now probably turned into an Indian squaw after all those years outside Western civilisation.
The great popularity enjoyed by The Searchers among critics and film scholars could be explained by the fact that Ford's movie explores some great philosophical questions—human identity and the eternal struggle between irrational and rational tendencies within human beings. And such questions don't appear in some hermetic "artsy" movie; they are instead asked in a film that belongs to the rather crowd-pleasing genre of the Western. All this is wrapped up nicely in the script by Frank S. Nugent, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May. On the other hand, the splendid colour photography by Winton C. Hoch and the beautiful landscapes of Monument Valley locations shouldn't fool anyone—The Searchers is a very serious and dark film, one of the darkest films of its time. It shows the Old West as visually magnificent, but a very dark and unpleasant place to live, always ready to awaken the darkest and most irrational tendencies among human beings: material greed, sexual depravity and homicidal rage.
The dark overtones of the film are best embodied by its protagonist. Legendary John Wayne gives another great and memorable performance as the typical hero of the American West—a tough, hardened Westerner, one among those who turned a savage backwater of the world into its greatest superpower. But, at the same time, Wayne reveals the hidden, often forgotten other side of the coin; his Ethan is a tough Westerner who fought the wilderness in order to bring civilisation, but in the process he also became part of that wilderness. The real test for every actor is to play a convincing villain, and Wayne passes that test with flying colours, because his Ethan, although being the nominal protagonist, also happens to be the villain. His past is murky; he fought to preserve slavery, it is suggested that he robbed banks and probably committed other crimes to make ends meet. But the most disturbing element of his character is racism, first hinted in his mistreatment of his half-breed companion Martin, then finally revealed in his acts of mindless, pathological violence. Wayne should be really praised because he managed to portray that unsympathetic character with subtlety.
Ford also should be praised, because The Searchers was a film that faced America with some thorny issues. One of those issues was the real cause of racism among white people. The Searchers, rather explicitly for its time, confronts viewers with the ultimate nightmare for any racist, open or closet—interracial sex, or, to be precise, the "violation" of white women by non-white men. Ethan is clearly less disturbed by the fact that his family was massacred by Indians than by the fact that the women were raped in the process. His intent to kill Debbie becomes evident the moment he realises that she is grown enough to be regularly taken advantage of as an Indian squaw. Ford also shows the hypocritical nature of such racists—when white men have sexual liaisons with non-white women (as hinted in the semi-humorous episode with Martin's "wife") Ethan jokes; when it is the other way around, he becomes a homicidal maniac.
After showing such racist attitudes, which were the dark side of the glorious American past, Ford also explicitly shows its aftermath. Indians are portrayed as vicious killers, but they are also portrayed as victims too. The glorious, mythical 7th Cavalry Regiment shows its true nature by indiscriminately killing Indian women and children. Scar's murderous rampage is also motivated by revenge towards white people who had killed his sons. In the end, both men—Ethan and Scar—almost look like reflections of each other.
The Searchers is a very good film, one of the best made in its time, but the author of this review has some reservations towards using the word "masterpiece". The film is rich with details that could be discovered only with multiple viewings, but those multiple viewings also reveal many of the film's flaws. For example, the use of comedic subplots and characters, like the eccentric Indian hunter Mose Harper (played by the excellent Hank Worden), sometimes does give a flavour of realism and authenticity to this dark and depressing story, but very often that could turn into grotesque, like the presence of singing cowboy Ken Curtis playing Laurie's "civilised" suitor, and the wedding scene is rather farcical. The end is rather disappointing, with the rather unexplained Ethan's transformation from a homicidal maniac into a kind and forgiving family man; that was probably made in order to give this film a required happy ending.
In the end, The Searchers is a film that belongs to the category of so-called "important" movies—those which are remembered less by their own merit, and more by the way they influenced future film-makers. On the other hand, due to the climate of "political correctness", it is unlikely that today's Hollywood would dare to tarnish such an important legacy with a remake. This would probably be a good thing for all those film lovers who would like to be introduced to that exceptional piece of classic cinema.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on October 28th 1999)
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Critic: AAA
