The Searchers

The Searchers starring John Wayne opened in 1956, and it was probably my father’s favorite movie.  It is a widely influential western film which features the legendary duo of John Wayne and director John Ford.  John Ford is credited with taking back creative control from the editors.  He shot his films in sequence and performed his cuts in camera.  John Wayne appeared in twenty four of Ford’s movies and, perhaps, owes much of his legendary status to Ford.

I have seen The Searchers more than twice as many times as any other movie.  Like I said, it was my father’s favorite movie so he watched it on at least a weekly basis.  The story begins when Wayne’s character returns from fighting with Union troops in the Civil War, and he is reunited with his family and local townspeople.  Within days of his return, a raid by Comanche Indians leaves his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew dead.  His two nieces are abducted during the raid and the chasee begins.  Wayne and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter) pursue the raid party along with the fiance of one of the girls.  They try to ambush the party but the older girl is killed and her fiance charges into the camp to his death.  Wayne and Hunter then wander for five years in search of the younger girl.  They eventually find the Comanche camp and speak with their chief, Scar.  Wayne’s character hates Native Americans, and the Comanche chief hates white people.  The two equal and opposite egos are pitted against one another inside a tee pee where the young girl the two main characters are searching to rescue holds a spear decorated with scalps (one from her sister and one from her mother) between Wayne and Scar. 

It is at this time that Wayne’s character undergoes a dramatic change; no longer does he wish to rescue the youngest girl, but he actively plots to kill her.  He fully believes that living like a Native American is worse than death.  Ultimately, Wayne cannot kill the young girl and brings her to live with another family.  There are the requisite ten gallon hats, six shooters, gun fights, and manly nicknames for John Wayne (Scar calls him “Big Shoulders”), but this film focuses on the characters as they search for the abducted girl and the transformation they make along the way.  One example of this is Hunter’s character who is in love with a girl, but during his journey only writes one letter in five years, accidentally marries an Indian woman by trading for a blanket (it was a package deal), and ultimately returns to find the girl he loves engaged to a local cowboy.  Hunter plays into the main plot not only as an untrained Indian fighter and comic relief, but he is also responsible for saving Debbie (the young abductee) from John Wayne’s deadly intentions.

Wayne’s character is the simplest to understand and undergoes the greatest change.  He begins the film as a soldier returning home from war.  There is some mention of him being somewhat of a wanted man which gives his character a mysterious quality.  He also completely hates Native Americans.  I’m talking about full blown disrespecting the dead kind of hate.  There is a scene shortly before Wayne and Hunter set off alone, after they find the older girl’s body, where the posse of soldiers finds the hastily buried body of a “comanch”.  John Wayne rides up to the freshly discovered corpse and fires two rounds from his revolver into the eyes of the dead man.  When he is questioned why, he responds “by what this comanch believes if he ain’t got eyes he can’t enter the spirit world and must wonder for eternity between the winds”.  While he does not ever fully rid himself of this hate, it is tempered greatly when he spares Debbie’s life.  He was fully prepared to murder the girl to “save” her from being one of Scar’s wives.  He is completely filled with hate, but he is not a fool when it comes to tracking their quarry.  He knows the Comanche language as well as Spanish.  He meets a Mexican man who ultimately leads Wayne and Hunter to Scar’s camp. 

As in most of his films, John Wayne is portrayed as a strong willed, confident, and powerful man.  I would argue, however, that he is not the hero of this film.  The hero of this film is Hunter.  Though his transformation is not as exciting, we see a boy grow into a man, then we see that man get beat up a couple times, and finally that same man saves the life of Debbie. 

This film was not one of Wayne and Ford’s most famous films, but it’s cinematography, character development, and plot make it an outstanding classic western that will remain near the top of the list of great western movies for the foreseeable future