The Searchers (1956)

Director: John Ford
Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles

Synopsis:
An embittered ex-Confederate tracks the Comanche tribe that killed his brother's family and took his niece captive.

Impressions:
This movie is considered by many to be one of the greats of both John Ford and John Wayne's careers, the Western genre and cinema at large. The modern viewer may not appreciate it as much, but this film predates the revisionist Western craze by quite a few years. You could say this film marks the transition point between the classic and revisionist eras of the genre. I like that this film has the boldness to delve into grey morality and dark themes. John Wayne doesn't play an unambiguous whitehat and seeing him dip so deeply into dark anti-hero territory is really cool. You really have to have a character like John Wayne's Ethan set off by Jeffrey Hunter's Marty and the two make an interesting combo. There's a large and colorful cast of characters and some of the stand-outs I want to give particular note to are Ward Bond's Captain Clayton, Ken Curtis' Charlie McCorry and Hank Worden's Mose Harper (double points for him). I usually find romantic subplots poorly handled, but I liked the relationship between Marty and Laurie (Vera Miles). If you're a fan of Westerns, you've no doubt seen this one several times over but even if you don't gravitate toward the genre, I think there's more than enough you can appreciate. It's rightly hailed as one of the greats and well worth seeing if not adding to your collection.

Rating:
Own It