The Searchers (1956)

The Searchers (1956)

starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond

directed by John Ford

119 minutes

Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns to Texas to see his brother, in 1868, after serving in the American Civil War. He isn't there long before his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephew are murdered and his nieces are abducted by Comanches. Ethan and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), his adopted nephew, spend the next few years trying to find his nieces. They find evidence within a year that the older niece is dead but they keep looking for Debbie, the younger one.

Ethan and Martin are aided on a couple occasions by Captain Samuel Clayton Johnson (Ward Bond), of the Texas Rangers, and his men. Martin is torn but ultimately decides to stick with Ethan and keep looking for Debbie who he thinks of as his little sister rather than settle down and get married to Laurie Jorgensen (Vera Miles). She gives him more than one chance to make up for abandoning her while he looks for Debbie. 

Ethan and Martin's search for Debbie eventually yields results.

Thoughts

I last watched the Searchers in 2010. I also saw it in the 1990s. Both prior viewings were on television sets. This time around I saw it in a movie theater projected in 70mm. It was definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

The actresses who played young Debbie at the beginning of the movie and older Debbie closer to the end of the movie were sisters Lana and Natalie Wood. They were born eight years apart. Debbie is supposed to be about 14 when they find her but Natalie Wood was about 18 at the time the movie was released.

Jeffrey Hunter is best known to me for playing Captain Christopher Pike in the Star Trek (1966), specifically in the original pilot (The Cage) and in the only two-part story from the original series, The Menagerie.

The Cheyenne are depicted as cruel and evil, without redeeming characteristics. This rubbed me the wrong way. There isn't the slightest bit of screen time given to explaining how or why the White people (who moved into what was Cheyenne territory) might have incurred the wrath of the Cheyenne.

There are some film scholars who have speculated that Debbie is actually Ethan's daughter. I can buy into that idea but it isn't explicitly clear that this is the case.

Ethan Edwards is not depicted as a very likeable character. The movie trades heavily on the reputation of John Wayne as a good guy to offset the character he plays. I believe that if he was played by someone who usually played bad guys then I think this movie would have been received quite differently.

This movie was not nominated for any Academy Awards, despite the high regard with which it is held today.

This is a very well made movie although it isn't without blemishes. It deserves a lot of the praise it has received. It is powerful and moving but I still can't help but dislike the one-note depiction of the Cheyenne. It was worth watching again for multiple reasons including the fact that it gave me a chance to reevaluate the film in light of how I see the world now as compared to how I saw it the first couple times I watched it.