John Wayne: The Searchers
by John Ford
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: John Wayne, Natalie WoodDirector: John Ford
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0; Spanish (Dubbed), Mono
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 119 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-08-02
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 115865
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Working together for the 12th time, John Wayne and director John Ford forged The Searchers into an indelible image of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays ex-Confederate soldier Ethan Edwards, a believer more in bullets than in words. He's seeking his niece, captured by Comanches who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness
Movie Reviews of John Wayne: The Searchers
Movie Review: Azure Skies and Terra Cotta Frontiers
Summary: 5 Stars
(Firstly, this is a review of the film, as opposed to the DVD or the blu-ray disc. For technical feedback, you may want to find something more specific. Just clearing that up. There are many reviews on this site and they're all different.)
This is one of the greatest movies made. Obviously I'm not stating anything new or insightful by saying that. It's a known fact. Even if westerns are not your cup of tea, you must admit this is a powerful and well rendered piece of cinema.
Hard to swallow that this movie garnered not one Academy Award nomination in 1956. Not for photography, score, acting? Was there a reason for this, I wonder. Possible. "Around the World in Eighty Days" wooed the Oscar people that year with an all-star cast and a grand and glamorous spectacle.
Anyway, the places where "The Searchers" was shot are just breathtaking. That opening shot from the dark house to the wide open frontier has to be one of the best opening scenes in film ever. Ethan has come back to his brother Aaron's family after fighting in a war that ended three years earlier. He brings with him a quiet but seething hatred for indians (based on his demeanor towards his mixed breed nephew Martin).
There's tension already but it soon gets even stronger. When Lucy lights the lamp for dinner and her mother quickly puts it out, Lucy instantly knows what is about to happen. And we get the general idea, too. Dramatic moments like this really make a movie crackle for me.
"That'll be the day" seems like Ethan Edwards' slogan. Ethan is hard to figure. He is a hero and a villain in certain ways. He is smart and sensible but at times rash and tempermental. He is capable of anything, really. He seems to be a decent fellow at heart. He is a bunch of contradictions, and so are many people, so I think we can somehow relate to this man. Most of all he is determined. But is he going to rescue his niece Debbie... or murder her? It is a long journey, and it seems nothing will stop Ethan. I think his quest is not so much about finding a family member as it is about having a purpose that he thinks is right and true.
Martin knows that Ethan is capable of anything; he is concerned that Ethan may do something bad (to Debbie), for she is now basically being raised as an indian. None of this is said but you can infer it easily.
Jeffrey Hunter and Vera Miles are good in their supporting roles. It's sad that they cannot be together because of the dire circumstances. How ironic that they should be reuinted accidentally on her wedding day to another man!
The film keeps the viewer thoroughly engrossed because we want to know if Ethan will find the girl, or if Ethan will die at the hands of the Comanche. I have to say that John Wayne is very effective here: larger than life, likable, robust, sometimes funny, raw, and relentless.
Funny how you recognize certain actors for their roles in other vehicles; a regular in many of John Wayne's movies, Hank Worden who played Mose Harper in "The Searchers" would go on to play the tall elderly room service clerk in the 1991 ABC-TV serial "Twin Peaks". His face is instantly recognizable. And the character of guitar-playing Charlie McCorry is played by Ken Curtis, who would play the cranky and scruffy deputy Festus on "Gunsmoke".
When I think of this film I instantly think of blue and orange; the sky and the earth. I always recall the gorgeous red sandstone rock formations of Monument Valley.
The story has been compared to Homer's Odyssey; and Ethan changes over time and becomes nearly as ruthless and brutal as the "savages" he is bent on avenging. But does he track down Debbie? You'll have to watch to find out.
Watching this movie, I just get completely involved with it and caught up in Ethan's journey. It's not just a physical journey, of course, but a journey of character and self discovery. In westerns, fight scenes and battle scenes tend to bore me, but character-driven stories really appeal to me. This one is all about the character. Ethan Edwards is as strong and memorable a character in cinema as any other: he belongs in the pantheon of greatest film characters... with Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With the Wind), Quint (Jaws), Marge Gunderson (Fargo), Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire).
Summary of John Wayne: The Searchers
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