[The following was part of my John Ford film study course I taught in the winter of 2023. SPOILERS are included in this handout, so if you haven’t watched this film before, feel free to refrain until you do so.]
As we transition to our next film, THE SEARCHERS (1956), we will experience a very different John Ford film, with a starkly darker role for John Wayne. Based on a novel of child abduction by Alan Le May (1899 – 1964), Ford’s film takes us on a long quest like a bitter reversal of his THREE GODFATHERS.
Our story begins in 1868, with our anti-hero “Uncle Ethan” returning from a long absence. He is both protagonist and antagonist. Not unlike so many men coming back from war, he is a psychologically damaged, darker version of his old self. Similar to many doomed characters in the popular film noirs of mid-century cinema, Ethan has a chip on his shoulders the size Monument Valley itself; and is driven beyond reason.
Le May studied over 60 examples of real-life cases of child abductions in Texas from the 1800s. Based on his own research notes, most of his novel is based upon African American Brit Johnson who searched and found his captured wife and children from the Comanche in 1865 and later searched for another kidnapped girl in Native territories and Kansas. Johnson was killed in 1871.
Many have suggested author Le May also drew inspiration from the famed Cynthia Ann Parker case, from the 1836 kidnapping of then nine-year-old Parker. Parker was later discovered after 24 years with the Comanches- she had assimilated into Indigenous culture, with a native husband and three children. She and her daughter were captured by the Texas Rangers and US Calvary during the Battle of Pease River, forced back in white culture, yet never adapted. She refused to re-assimilate into the white culture and was treated like a circus freak show. She died of suicide by voluntarily starving herself. But her eldest son Quanah went on to become a great leader within the Comanche nation, considered the last “free” Comanche Chief by the U.S. government. Not dissimilar from Ford’s film interpretation, Cynthia Parker’s uncle James Parker spent many years and a fortune looking for her. While the original story may have been influenced by a compilation of child abduction stories from this era, it seems obvious that Nugent’s screenplay took mostly from the Parker storyline.
Winnie Hoch photographed THE SEARCHERS in VistaVision, and Technicolor. While Technicolor was growing more commonplace, VistaVision with its bigger film negative, was a rarity. Only a few films were made in VistaVision, yet the results are stunning to this day. Monument Valley was the perfect place to film in that grand and beautiful technology.
At the onset of the search, Olive Carey as Mrs. Jorgenson delivers a line to Wayne’s “Ethan” that is both prophetic and wise in addressing Ethan’s nature. It is also an echo from THREE GODFATHERS’ ongoing theme of fulfilling a promise to a dying mother. In this case, the promise is from a surviving mother in memory of a dead mother’s wishes beyond the grave. A dead mother he secretly loves. Yet Ethan never agrees to her pleas and sage advice, before riding off to seek revenge.
“Ethan, those girls mean as much to me as my own. Maybe you don’t know my Brad’s been sitting up with Lucy. And my Laurie’s been seeing Martin.” … ”It’s just that I know Martha’d want you to take care of her boys as well as her girls. And if the girls are dead, don’t let the boys waste their lives in vengeance. Promise me, Ethan,” Mrs. Jorgensen says.
As the quest pushes onward, we see many examples of Ford making the audience uncomfortable with violence, psychological trauma, and Ethan’s racism. Ethan frequently demeans Martin Pawley (Jeff Hunter) for being part Cherokee (one-eighth), calling him “blanket head” and “half-breed.” Ethan shows us his knowledge of the Comanche language and culture throughout the entire journey, and one cannot help but assume he has learned this for a strategic and nefarious benefit.
One of the more uncomfortable sub-stories deals with the Native young woman, “Look.” You get the strong impression that while the film consistently gives examples of the wrongs of racism, the introduction to Look’s character is supposed to be slapstick level comic relief, but it’s clearly a mean-spirited, misogynistic, and racist treatment. To modern audiences, it’s likely another uncomfortable moment but not in the way of the original intent. Ultimately, Ford attempts to redeem himself in a more respectful conclusion to the “Look” sub-story.
There are many plot differences between the novel and Ford and Nugent’s on-screen version. In the novel, Martin Pawley is the protagonist, who is not part-Cherokee. In the film, the focus is on an older Ethan. In the novel, Debbie is an adopted daughter to Scar. But in the film, Debbie has been forced to become one of Scar’s wives. Ethan makes it clear that once the sexual corruption has occurred, he no longer thinks of Debbie as his family. She transitions into the enemy. By doing so, the film creates more conflict for Ethan and a sense of urgency in reaching her.
In addition to his commitment of revenge for the killing of the other family members, Ethan now looks at Debbie as one of ‘them,’ not as a victim. His hatred and bigotry burns so endlessly, that it seemingly overtakes the possibility that Debbie could be his own flesh and blood, even closer than a niece. Ford chooses subtlety to drop hints that a romance had transpired between Ethan and his brother Aaron’s wife, Martha. Based on the amount of time Ethan has been away to fight in the Confederacy and then 3 years in the 2nd Franco-Mexican War (8 years total), we see it’s possible he could be Debbie’s absent yet secretly biological father. It’s only hinted as Martha tenderly folds and strokes his coat, perhaps reflecting on a different Ethan from years ago; but it adds another layer of conflicted rage within Ethan’s character.
Another hint at Ethan’s dark bigotry, stems from the death of his mother. We see another familiar Ford graveside scene. From brief scenes at the family cemetery, it reveals another Comanche raid only years prior. On a gravestone it reads, “Here lies Mary Jane Edwards killed by Comanches May 12, 1852. A good wife and mother in her 41st year.”
Everything about Ethan’s story is that of a loner filled with insatiable, bigoted rage, as he searches aimlessly. There are examples of irony in Ethan’s character at the conclusion of THE SEARCHERS. One such case is when Ethan is seen scalping Scar. It is in contrast to Marty’s killing of Scar, which was in defense and protection of Debbie in the midst of rescuing her. Ethan takes it a hypocritical step farther when he behaves in the same manner as what he deems Scar’s barbaric behavior.
He also circles back to an early scene where Ethan damns a dead Comanche by shooting his eyes out, forcing him to “wander forever between the winds.” By the end of the film, the family is reunited, whole again. Except for Ethan, who stands alone on the porch, still the outsider. Despite his redemptive act of rescuing Debbie after a decade of searching, he does so with the intention of murdering her, then changes his mind at the very last minute. He is the one who is damned to wander forever between the winds. This is confirmed as John Wayne poses in a Harry Carey style of clasping the elbow and the song concludes…
“What makes a man to wander? What makes a man to roam?
What makes a man leave bed and board
and turn his back on home?
Ride away,
ride away,
ride away.”
Themes and other points for discussion:
-loner/outsider
-cultural clashes
-captivity narrative
-racism
-racist justification for genocide
-false representations of Native American cultures
-journey/quest storytelling
-obsession
-home/family/community
-loss of innocence
-civilization vs wilderness
-the western as Americana
-visual storytelling
-a strong woman as a mother figure
-violent yet beautiful landscape
-afterlife philosophies
-touches of humor (comic relief from Hank Borden, Ken Curtis, and occasionally Jeff Hunter, romantic tensions, love triangle, and the ritual of a “good ole fight”)
-full circles (opening scenes: in doorway, Ethan lifting up Debbie… closing scenes: Ethan lifting up Debbie, again in doorway)
Orson Welles once said of Ford, “He’s a poet and a comedian. With Ford at his best, you get a sense of what the earth is made of.” Do you agree? How so?
Cast and Crew:
John Wayne – Ethan Edwards
Jeffrey Hunter – Martin Pawley
Vera Miles – Laurie Jorgensen
Ward Bond – Rev Capt Samuel Johnston Clayton
Natalie Wood – Debbie Edwards (teenager)
John Qualen – Lars Jorgensen
Olive Carey (Harry Carey’s widow/Dobe Carey’s mother) – Mrs. Jorgensen
Henry Brandon – Scar/ Cicatriz
Ken Curtis – Charlie McCorry
Harry Carey, Jr – Brad Jorgensen
Antonio Moreno – Emilio Gabriel Fernandez y Figueroa
Hank Worden – Mose Harper (loosely based on a real person, “Mad Mose,” a half-crazy fighter of Native Americans who had an obsessive fondness for rocking chairs)
Beulah Archulette – Look
Walter Coy – Aaron Edwards
Dorothy Jordan – Martha Edwards
Pippa Scott – Lucy Edwards
Patrick Wayne – Lt. Greenhill
Lana Wood – young (8 yo) Debbie Edwards
Directed by: John Ford
Produced by: Merian C Cooper, Patrick Ford
Writing by: Alan Le May (story, “The Searchers” published in 1954), Frank Nugent (screenplay)
Cinematography by: Winton C Hoch
Music by: Max Steiner
Film Editing by: Jack Murray
Art Direction by: James Basevi, Frank Hotaling
Production Co: CV Whitney Pictures aka “Sonny”/ Distributed by: Warner Brothers
Release date: May 16, 1956
Budget: $3.75 million (Grossed $5.9 million worldwide by April 1958- 11th biggest grossing film of 1956)*
Sources:
*”Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford” by Scott Eyman, 1999
IMDB