I used to not like John Wayne. For some reason, in my head, I thought he was boring, too often the hero, constantly calling people 'pilgrim' etc. etc. I bought into a stereotype perhaps. His iconic nature was easy to respect but I generally didn't like his movies, or so I had apparently decided.
Until a week ago or so, I considered Wayne's best movie to be The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), where he plays a vital but supporting character to Jimmy Stewart. It's probable part of me liked Wayne more as a sidekick and that impacted my thinking on the matter. I no longer consider that his best and won't be writing any more about it, an idea I've bandied about in the past, but it's certainly worth watching. If you are looking for classic leading man, straight-shooter Wayne (where John Wayne plays John Wayne), the easy suggestion is Rio Bravo (1959). In that one he teams up with Dean Martin and is, as a sheriff trying to do the right thing, outnumbered and outgunned. That was one I liked immediately, though Wayne himself isn't the biggest reason, it's Martin singing of course.
If you google something like 'best John Wayne movies' or 'best westerns' you'll (hopefully) end up finding The Searchers (1956). Memorably, it appeared as AFI's top western when they released a series of top 10 lists in 2008. The first time I saw this film was about that long ago and I didn't think much of it, though I don't remember exactly why. After seeing it available on HBOMax I wondered if the younger version of myself missed something or if it's just an overrated old movie. I decided to find out. Usually I've found my recollections to be pretty accurate and it doesn't work out for me to give something a second chance. That was not the case here.
The Searchers centers on Ethan Edwards (Wayne), a former Confederate returning to Texas several years after the end of the Civil War. His 'home' is actually his brothers, who, along with a wife and children (a teenage boy and two girls) live on the range in west Texas. Soon after Ethan's arrival a group of Texas Rangers call on his brother to help find some missing, presumably stolen, cattle. Ethan, smelling something, goes in his place. Stealing the cattle was indeed all a ploy, and after the men ride off a group of Comanche raid the house. It's too late by the time Ethan and the other men figure it out and can make it back. The brother, wife and son have been killed and the two girls have been taken. The majority of the film is a desperate search for the girls and a quest for revenge.
On my second viewing I thought this was a fantastic film, for a few reasons. The aspect that stands out immediately is the landscape captured by director John Ford. This is the quintessential film shot at Monument Valley in Arizona, it's utterly stunning and always beautifully framed. Even more important is Ethan's character, a departure from Wayne's typical roles. Here he's full antihero, a man driven, it appears, more by revenge than any desire to actually find his nieces alive. He's obsessed, and it makes him mean, callous and even brutal. It's so great. What starts with a dozen or so men becomes a two-man search that lasts five years. The other man, Martin, more-or-less an adopted son of the murdered family, like a brother to the missing girls, sticks it out because he's afraid Ethan might murder them when/if they're found. For one, he stands to inherit his brothers farm if they're all dead, and two, he wouldn't stand it if they'd since gone native after all that time with the Comanche. Up to the very end what he's going to do, what's most important to him, is in question, at least it was to me.
There's another wrinkle, maybe. It's apparent from the beginning there's something between Ethan and Martha, his brother's wife. She's a bit overwhelmed by his return, and she's extremely careful, and caring, with his belongings on entering their home. There are several longing looks in those early scenes, one direction or the other. It's likely on some level they love each other, but we'll never know their history or if their love resulted in, say, a child. The youngest daughter Debbie (later played by a teenage Natalie Wood) is about as old as the length of Ethan's absence, by the way. And if she is indeed Ethan's child, that makes everything that happens, and his motivations, much, much more interesting, and tragic. I could be reading too much into what are wordless subtleties, but there has to be a reason for their inclusion, right? The scene where their friend, the Ranger/preacher, averts his eyes at their interaction is the most striking, if you're paying attention.
This is still a western made in the '50s, and includes everything that goes along with it. There's a romantic side-plot involving Martin and a young woman who's been waiting for him her entire life. Ethan's mission has had other casualties too. And there's the goofy, folksy minor characters inserted for comic relief (like Mose and the Swedish couple), kind of a trope in films like this. It all, I think, helps fill out the world and it can be nice to be distracted from an exhausting main plot. But it can feel strange and out of place to the modern viewer, who's probably expecting something more cohesive for the full runtime.
I will say it's impressive how Ford handled the portrayal of Native Americans. It would've been easy, considering the basic plot and the 1950s, to have them simply be evil savages. There's no question the Comanche commit some horrific barbarism (all offscreen btw), but it's all shown in the context as perceived long-running feuds with white settlers. Different tribes are just that, and the U.S. army even completely wipes out one of them for seemingly no reason. This isn't a film where white people are heroes and natives are villains, but one demonstrating a collision of cultures. The frontier was a nasty place. After finishing this movie I couldn't help but compare it to Dances with Wolves (1990), which is best known for how it portrayed, in that case, the Sioux. My opinion is The Searchers effectively accomplished a lot of what won Dances with Wolves accolades (Best Picture!), but with a more engaging protagonist and overall plot.
Let's bring it all together. Not only was I wrong about this movie in my younger years, I'm now in the camp that this is a masterpiece, one of the best westerns ever made. Its influence has become obvious too. For one quick example, there's no doubt that, in Star Wars (1977), Luke's return to find his uncle and aunt dead and their house on fire mimics Ethan's return to his brother's homestead after the raid.
If I get around to doing a top 5 westerns post, this will now certainly be on it. More surprisingly, I may even like the Duke now.
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