Searchers
If there ever was an actor who managed to get more mileage out of playing the same, basic stock character from whom his real life persona was derived from, it was none other than John Wayne. Stubborn, strong willed, sullen and just an all around man’s man would be just some of the adjectives that can be used to describe most of his starring roles in quite literally hundreds of films that in many ways to this day made him the ultimate movie star, always working on a set and usually while riding in a saddle. Even his 1969 Best Actor Oscar win for True Grit was widely considered by many to be more of a “career” award, as he basically just played an older, more grizzled version of his usual character type. But on the rare occasions that he did stretch himself as an actor, the results were often remarkable and amazing to see, as it was here in 1956 with what many consider to be both his finest performance AND film, directed by his usual go to guy John Ford in one of the many, many collaborations together that they had. What separates this one from the pack is perhaps the complexity of Wayne’s performance, in many ways playing a borderline villain who is certainly a racist and full of bitter hate (for understandable reasons) against that of Native Americans who have in essence slaughtered his entire family, although what’s interesting is that he displays a nasty attitude and an antisocial nature even early on here before the fateful incident. His Ethan Edwards is a returning Confederate War soldier who comes home (3 years after The Civil War had actually ended) with somewhat of a shady past as it pertains to what exactly he has been up to all this time. Nonetheless, he is welcomed back by both his brother, his sister in law (whom many feel it is implied that he has had a romantic relationship with in the past) and their three kids, and it isn’t long before the local preacher / lawman (Ward Bond) recruits him for some side duty chasing down some Indians who have stolen some cattle. However Wayne (who despite his hatred for them still carries an excellent knowledge of their methods and traditions) correctly ascertains that the cattle stealing was just a ruse to draw the men away from their homes so that they can carry out a “murder raid” and as expected, they wind up killing his brother and nephew while raping and killing his sister in law before kidnapping the two daughters (one a teenager and the other a child) which transforms Wayne into a bitter yet darkly determined man who vows first and foremost to hunt down those responsible and if possible, rescue the two young ladies who are his kin (even as the oldest is found killed soon after). Joining him on this quest is his brother’s adopted son played by Jeffrey Hunter, a young man whom Wayne always talks down to for having Cherokee blood in his veins but who in reality is probably the actual hero of the film as well as being the voice of reason which as it turns out is for a terrifying purpose, as Wayne is so disgusted and repulsed by the concept of his surviving niece most likely living amongst and being willingly intimate with her captors that he makes it very clear that IF he finds her that he will literally kill her just like any other Indian in what can best be described in today’s parlance as a so called “honor killing”, which is at best a monstrous way for any (male) human being to think, while Hunter looks at his mission as not only bringing justice on those responsible for his adopted family’s slaughter, but if need be to protect his surviving adopted sister from the wrath of Wayne himself! The fact that Wayne’s character is generally thought of here by the others as being the de facto badass in the region is nothing really new, but the idea of him being filled with so much blind rage that he loudly urges the preacher to finish up with the funeral of his own family so that they can finally hit the trail along with a genuinely bloodchilling scene where the posse finds the body of a recently dead Indian whom he proceeds to shoot the eyes out of so that he may wander blind in the spirit world forever are enough to give one pause as to whether or not if this is actually a good man after all that we are watching here carrying out what he feels to be such a righteous mission. However, the film does gets bogged down a bit in a romantic subplot involving Hunter and a local town maiden (Vera Miles) even though it introduces a hilariously hillbilly side character competing with Hunter for her affections (Ken Curtis) who comes off like the biggest simpleton asshole in the history of cinema, the type of guy who romantically strums his guitar for Miles at just the suggestion that her betrothed will never truly be able to be with her while also affecting a goofy hillbilly laugh that’s about five steps from this side of caricature (“Haw, haw, haw”), leading to a fight scene between the two men over her hand which Wayne just kicks back and enjoys while Miles acts offended over it all even as the look on her face betrays the fact that she’s actually thrilled to watch these two men go mano e mano over her. It does succeed though, at providing some nice comic relief distraction from the darker business at hand, which includes Wayne paying out some money for information from a shifty trading post owner, only to successfully set the man up to be killed when he attempts an ambush to seemingly rob Wayne of the rest of his money, and even when he finds the main assailant behind the original attacks, a War Chief named Scar (Henry Brandon), he tries to mislead him into thinking that he wants to do business by bartering for some items to trade, which leads to him and Hunter finally discovering the long lost niece, Debbie, played by Natalie Wood just on the cusp of her legendary career, and astoundingly beautiful at that point in time to boot. Which makes Wayne’s final moral decision (and in some ways, an at least partial redemption) one of the highights of film history and it is that, along with the more than utterly spectacular cinematography by Ford of the Utah Valley where much of the movie was filmed on location, which makes the film as one that is often cited by authorities no less respectable than Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich and many others as not only being amongst the greatest Westerns ever made but also amongst the greatest films of all time, period, despite the fact that certain elements and styles of the filmmaking have managed to date it quite a bit as being a product of its time, an anachronism that has plagued much of Wayne’s work, including having a somewhat leisurely pace, corny and uninspired Western country boy music, and the ugly head of the old Production Code being reared once again to avoid giving it an actual, gritty hard edge. But as the ultimate exploration of the dark side of the John Wayne persona, it is second to none, as even his fellow (white) characters at times seem to be appalled and taken aback over certain key aspects of his character here. Notwithstanding the fact that many would consider the behavior of the “savages” whom Wayne despises to be no different (nor better) than the current threats whom we are perceived to be facing from Islam extremists in general and ISIS in particular with the constant media reports on their activities (both real and predicated) successfully stoking a racist fire within many Americans to want to hunt these depraved bastards down and send them to where we feel that they belong just as Ethan Edwards himself would do even as the pragmatic, common sense observer can clearly see that any terroristic activities that they actually manage to carry out are those that they have been ALLOWED to do by those who are in control with their constant observation and surveillance in order to justify the ongoing slaughter of those people regardless of whether or not they are actually guilty or innocent of such horrific acts. But at least in a comparatively primitive age such as The Old West, one can reasonably presume that a character like Edwards at least has a healthy justification for vengeance against those who would commit these kinds of acts on his home and hearth, and there will never be anyone better to play this kind of a complex role than the man for whom we almost felt was like a modern day transplant from that era who just seemed so authentic at playing these parts that we could almost imagine him being more comfortable riding around on a horse even in this day and age rather than being behind the wheel of a car or just sitting there riding the bus…
9/10