Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Western of all time? Fifty years old and good enough for another fifty years!, 26 Jun 2007
I first saw this film as a young eighteen year-old Western aficionado on its first theatrical release to the English provinces in 1956. I came to it with great expectations fresh from reading Alan Le May's book of the same name. I came away knowing I'd seen a great film but I was disappointed on two counts first the search lasts for ten years in the book and second, Wayne's character Ethan is killed off in the penultimate battle with the Indians. In the subsequent years I've seen this film dozens of times and it never fails to amaze me that on each fresh viewing I never fail to notice something new!
John Ford and John Wayne collaborated on several films most of them westerns. Although this was their first Western for six years since they completed the last of the Cavalry Trilogy RIO GRANDE (1950). As with the trilogy, Ford once again choose to shoot the most of the film in Monument Valley Utah, when using this his favourite location Ford became an acclaimed visual poet of the West. With Ford's "Western Director" to Wayne's "Western Star" they were unequalled in the making of Westerns producing an outstanding body of work between 1939 and 1962! Although THE SEARCHERS remained totally unrecognised by The Academy Awards for 1956. Fifty-odd years later it still stands at the top of the many peoples list as the greatest Western of all time. Also appearing in most if not all of The Greatest 100 Movies Of All Time Lists.
Three years after the Civil War Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) a dark brooding mysterious character returns home to his brother Aaron (Walter Coy) homestead. Ethan takes his brother place on a posse led by Texas Ranger Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton (Ward Bond) on the trail of a raiding party, coming across some slaughtered cattle they realise they've been lured away whilst the main Indian party attacked either the Edwards or Jorgensen Homesteads.
The main body of the posse head back towards Jorgensen's place whilst Ethan along with Mose Harper (Hank Worden) rest their horses before heading back to the Edwards homestead, meanwhile Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter) who had raised by the Edwards as their own raced on ahead against Ethan's advice. Arriving back at the smoking Edwards homestead their worse fears are founded, the two girls Lucy (Pippa Scott) and young Debbie (Lana Wood) have been taken captive and the rest killed. After the burial of his family a demented Ethan sets out after the Indians with a posse led by Captain Clayton. Following a skirmish with the Indians at the river, Clayton elects to take the wounded back home.
Ethan reckons on going on alone but Martin and Brad Jorgensen (Harry Carey Jr.) insist on going too, not least because they fear what Ethan might do the girls. So the three (later two) searchers set out on the trail of the Indians for five long years a couple of trips back to the Jorgensen homestead when the trail was lost and twice pointed in the right direction by Shakespearian Fool Mose Harper, that leads to a band of Comanche led by a chief called Scar (Henry Brandon). At the camp they discover the older Debbie (Natalie Wood) dressed as an Indian girl of marriageable age. Will Ethan carry out his threat to kill her or will Martin be able to stop him?
John Ford was the master of conveying terrible events to his audience through suggested violence, like the returning posse coming across the burnt out homestead with Martha's dress laying on the ground outside indicating the horrors that lay inside. Again when Ethan returns to Martin and Brad from finding Lucy's remains we just see the haunted look on his face as he plunges his knife in the earth to remove the Indian blood from the blade, all powerful stuff but left to our own imagination!
And not only suggested violence but also suggested love too, hardly a word pass between Ethan and Martha but the viewer is left with little doubt of a passed tender relationship between the two. The long narrative is held together by a couple of visits back to the Jorgensen Homestead and a letter from Martin to Laurie, read out to one and all! Ford's ending of the film has turned out in the end to be one of the most iconic endings in movie history. How could I have been so presumptuous as to think anything else?
This Two-Disc Special Edition includes new digital transfer from restored Vista Vision Picture with an introduction by Co-Star Patrick Wayne. Plus: The Searchers: An Appreciation and other extras. Don't miss John Ford's Masterpiece all at a bargain price from Amazon. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Western from the master...John Ford!, 25 Jun 2006
1955 was the year that saw John Ford and John Wayne reunite again after the 4 year iatus since the classic "The Quiet Man".
The film that resulted from that reunion would be probably the most famous western of the 1950's (toguether with High Noon and Rio Bravo)! The story line is of course familiar to most people and i wont go into those details, but everytime i see it i cant be but convinced that Ford based it at least partially on HOMER'S "THE ODISSEY". Many will already have this briliant film on VHS or DVD, however this new special edition is a must, not only the print is beautifully clean and sharp with vivid colors but also we have 2 great documentaries one of them featuiring critic/director/historian Peter Bogdanovich comments on John Ford and his art. Not to be missed!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece on many levels, 3 Aug 2008
Today there is little question of 'The Searchers' being John Fords' best known film. It has had critical acclaim poured over it by masters of the art the likes of Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Steven Speilberg. James Stewart is quoted in Joseph McBrides' Ford biography citing John Waynes' performance here as one of the greatest of all time. It is regularly studied in film classes and in 1992 it was voted the fifth greatest movie of all time in Sight and Sound magazines' decennial critics' poll. It should be stressed however that the film takes a few viewings before its' brilliance truly sets in, such is its' depth. Alfred Hitchcock once commented that it is wrong to judge a movie after only one viewing and this picture is evidence of that.
So why does 'The Searchers' get so much acclaim? There are several reasons. First of all we have to start with the films' central character, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne). It is the role which many people (including Wayne himself) consider to be his career best. Edwards is what we call a multi-faceted character. On one side he is a villain; his desire to rescue the two nieces who have been stolen from his brothers' ranch and to get revenge upon their killers may seem acceptable within the world we enter when we watch a classic western but the further the film progresses the more we realise that his mission is driven in no small part by racial hatred. Early on for example we see Ethan shoot an already dead Indian in the eyes simply because of their belief that they need them to get to the next world. It has also been suggested that he desires brothers' wife judging by the looks he gives her. On the other hand we feel sorry for Ethan because he is cast off from his family and we admire him for battling heat, thirst, snow and the desolate landscape of Monument Valley (Fords' favourite western location) over a lengthy period of time. Wayne went as far as to name one of his sons after the character such was the fulfillment he got from this legendary role.
The picture belongs to Wayne who waited years to play this challenging a part; he started out as a prop boy on John Fords' sets during the mid 1920s' and yet it was not until Howard Hawks showed faith by casting him as Tom Dunson in the excellent 1948 cattle western 'Red River' that his true acting ability became apparent. The rest of the cast is superb as well. The dashing Jeffrey Hunter plays part-Indian Martin Pawley with great charisma; witness the scene where he accidently buys himself a wife and is lumbered with her. This leads to comedy the nature of which we see in Fords' 1952 picture 'The Quiet Man'. Yet like so many aspects of this film it has a tragic consequence, the sort that runs through much of Fords' work. The fact that Pawley joins Edwards for the epic quest makes the picture all the more fascinating given his ethnic origins. Pawleys' long-suffering female interest is played by fifties beauty Vera Miles who had the acting skills to match her stunning appearance. She would also work with Ford on 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' (1962) and appeared for Hitchcock as well. John Fords' stock company (actors he used on several occasions) is out in force here; watch out for Ward Bond (as Rev. Capt. Clayton), Harry Carey Jnr. (as Brad Jorgenson) and Olive Carey- the wife of Harry Carey Snr. who was the star of most of Fords' earliest features- as Mrs Jorgenson. The young Natalie Wood plays captured niece Debbie and German-born actor Henry Brandon makes the villainous Indian Chief Scar into a fearsome nemesis.
The film demands to be seen on the big screen; the technicolor is stunning and the beauty of the location is fully emphasised by the photography. Ford told Peter Bogdanovich that he preferred shooting in black and white ("real photography") but he makes remarkable use of the colour here. This film is so rich, new things spring up every time one watches it. I have seen it at least half a dozen times and there are key details I simply could not pick up until I researched it on the imdb, try as I might to grasp everything.
Now it is available as a two disc set at a good price I would strongly recommend that any serious fan of cinema purchase this outstanding movie. It is moving, powerful, deep, uplifting, tragic, inspiring, dark, beautiful, ugly, nostalgic and so many more things- in fact I could go on for the length of a book in describing it. A remarkable achievement by this legendary actor-director team (see also 'Stagecoach' (1939), 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon' (1949), Rio Grande (1950) etc).
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