Spoiler Alert: This is not just a rescue mission

Movie: The Searchers

Rank: 12

Year: 1956

Director: John Ford

Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood

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I’m not entirely sure if I’ve watched The Searchers previously. If all of cinema is a buffet, to my dad, westerns are gourmet and John Wayne the top chef. The Duke was on my screen so regularly growing up, many of the films have blended together. Maybe this is sacrilege, but I tend to prefer and watch more often his non-western offerings; movies such as The Quiet Man or Donovan’s Reef. Coincidentally, both films are also a collaboration of John Ford and John Wayne. Anyone would be hard pressed to find many more prolific Hollywood collaborations as Ford and Wayne.

While I find it wholly unlikely this didn’t grace my television screen at least once as a child, I did approach this movie with fairly fresh eyes. This is not just one of the 100 movies to be called the greatest of American film. The Searchers ranks in twelfth place, making it the best western of all-time according to the American Film Institute. I enjoyed the movie, likely ranking in part due to its subversions from the genre, but these same subversions also make it slightly shocking this is the Western that has stood the test of time more than any other.

Since I finished the movie last night - which I must admit was the second of a two-night viewing because despite my night-owl status, I simply couldn’t hang – I have scrolled through the occasional article or write-up to get an understanding of why this one tops them all. The reasoning? Well, people seem rather undecided if this should maintain its place. Of those who do believe it is rightfully above the rest, the very thing that makes this movie uncomfortable to watch at times, especially given a modern lens, is the very thing which makes it grand.

An anti-hero, fully comfortable in his own aggression and racism, Ethan Edwards returns home in 1868, three years after the conclusion of the Civil War in which he was a Confederate soldier. Full of mystique, he comes to the home of his brother, sister-in-law, two nieces, one nephew and one adopted nephew he has no interest in taking on as kin. After partaking in a recovery mission for cattle, Ethan and the others come to realize it was a ploy to draw out the men by the Comanche so they could attack. They return to a burning home, everyone dead save the abducted Lucy and Debbie. The group of men quickly dissipates into Ethan, his non-biological nephew Martin and Lucy’s boyfriend. Tragedy strikes early when Lucy is found dead, with the insinuation of rape and scalping. Enraged, her boyfriend runs off to fight only to be instantly killed. Ethan and Martin keep going, as years fly by in the search for Debbie.

“Texican is nothing but a human man way out on a limb. This year and next, and maybe for a hundred more. But I don’t think it’ll be forever. Some day, this country’s gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come.”

- Mrs. Jorgensen, The Searchers

At this point, it seems only fair to mention there is some who theorize Ethan and his sister-in-law were more than just friends. Given Ethan’s absence and Debbie’s age, should this theory be correct, she may be his daughter and could account for the fervor with which he searches.

The dynamic between Ethan and Martin is not ideal. As Martin establishes early in the film, he does have some Comanche blood which utterly repulses Ethan. Yet, he later decides he should be his benefactor. This intense hatred for Comanche seems to move him forward, with revenge on the brain just as much, if not more, as a rescue mission. Others have even noted his hatred runs so deep as to learn their customs and language, just to act in contrary of it. When they come across a dead Comanche, buried, he even shoots him in the eyes to prevent his soul from moving to the spirit-land.

“No, a human rides a horse until it dies, then he goes on afoot. A Comanche comes along, gets that horse up, rides him 20 more miles… and then he eats him.”

- Ethan Edwards, The Searchers

While Ethan is a man with no one, Martin has ties to his old way of life. His girlfriend, Laurie, waits for him throughout much of the film. Though, not without her frustrations and an almost-wedding to someone else. I must say, for being set in 1870-ish (years pass, though at times it is not clear how many), Laurie had some cute fashion. At one point she had on straight-legged, dark-washed jeans with a loose plaid shirt. If Kendall Jenner or a Hadid sister wore that on the street, we’d all be talking about the reintroduction of western attire into fashion. If paired with thick-rimmed glasses and a beanie, it would be hipster-couture. It should also be noted, at one point, Laurie’s father mentions how exciting it is to get two letters in one year. Oh, the mid-1800s, what a time to be alive.

One scene sees a Native American home base burnt, with the “wife” Martin accidentally inherited in a trade before scaring her off, now murdered. While sad, it is hard to not see its similarity to the Mulan scene after the Huns attack.

Eventually the trail leads Ethan and Martin to find Scar, the man who holds Debbie hostage. Upon re-meeting her, it has become clear some Stockholm Syndrome has occurred. She dresses, acts and speaks as one of the Comanche. This sight draws out different reactions in our two leading men. Martin, her dutiful brother, tries to reason with her to come home, calling upon old memories. Ethan? Oh, sure, he wants to shoot her in the head because she is no longer white in his eyes.

Unable to convince or free her, and after Ethan has recovered from a bullet wound, they return to Laurie and her family only to see a wedding about to happen. Her new fiancé, a dim-witted Charlie, engages in a fight with Martin. This fight made the movie. These two idiots start to get in it, when Laurie tells them to go outside. Full of aggression, but also restrained by a sense of propriety, they walk outside. Martin even helps the groom out of the fancier elements of his attire. Then, Martin charges at him and even bites his leg. This is some full-on, toddler shit. They come across a violin, stop the fight to make sure it remains unharmed, and keep going. Laurie, the bride bound by an engagement but clearly loving the other, seems a little turned on by the whole affair. Her mom is just lucky racing tracks aren’t a thing at this time and place in history, because she looked ready to bet before getting pushed inside for being a woman. Don’t worry, she finds a window.

Meanwhile, whole essays of feminist theory could be written about Laurie. The sharpest tool in everyone’s shed, she reads and speaks better than any other. She has a sense of self-worth and isn’t worried about being a ball-buster despite the era. Her two best options given her homesteading life are two men who do not meet her wits.

This whole debacle, and likely arrest of Ethan and Martin for a death earlier in the film, is interrupted by a request for their assistance to stop the Comanche. Their hot tip coming from Mose.

Let’s take a moment to talk about Mose, out there on the look-out for Debbie during much of the same run as Martin and Ethan. Affable, Mose serves in many ways as Lenny from Of Mice and Men, with more affection from those around him and without the tragic ending. He likely should have a caretaker, and after being returned in rough shape, he gets the rocking chair he so desperately wanted next to the fire.

"He’s a man that can go crazy wild and I intend to be there to stop him in case he does.”

- Martin Pawley, The Searchers

They find the Comanche and Debbie. Ethan, with a look of fury in his eyes, is unable to be stopped by Martin and gets to Debbie first. Thankfully, his earlier notions of killing her are subsided and he decides to take her home. She is welcomed by Laurie’s parents, Laurie finally with Martin and Mose sitting in his chair. Ethan doesn’t make it through the threshold and instead turns around before the door shuts both figuratively and literally to mark the end of this rescue mission.

The start and end of this film show Ethan arriving and leaving framed by a darkened doorway. Is it darkened to show from where he is coming and going? Is it simply pretty cinematography to compliment the skill used in shooting the landscapes? Either way, this ending scene has become somewhat iconic.

This film is racist. It can be uncomfortable. But that is also the point. In many ways this film doesn’t go far enough, but positioned in its time and place in film history, it broaches taboo subjects in an artistic way.

“In truly great films – the ones that people need to make, the ones that start speaking through them, the ones that keep moving into territory that is more and more unfathomable and uncomfortable – nothing’s every simple or neatly resolved,” said Martin Scorsese in his 2013 The Hollywood Reporter review of this movie he counts among his favorites. He also speaks of the film’s high regard building up over time.

Do I think this is the greatest western of all time? I don’t know. It does seem fitting, though, that the top film should be a Ford and Wayne production.

P.S. A fact I learned in my infancy, but the Duke, with his towering presence on screen and his folk-lore in the Western genre was born by the name Marion Robert Morrison. You’re welcome.