John Wayne achieved major stardom with his starring role in the 1939 Western film Stagecoach, which marked Wayne’s first collaboration with director John Ford. Of course, Stagecoach led to several more memorable collaborations between Ford and Wayne in the ensuing decades, including the 1952 romantic comedy drama film The Quiet Man, which brought Ford his fourth Best Director Academy Award.
However, the greatest collaboration between Ford and Wayne is the 1956 Western film The Searchers, which is widely regarded as being the greatest and most influential Western of all time. The Searchers features one of Wayne’s most compelling performances as Ethan Edwards, an embittered and deeply prejudiced Civil War veteran who embarks on an obsessive five-year quest to find his niece, who was kidnapped by Comanche warriors who murdered her family.
While The Searchers is striking in terms of its pristine composition and visual splendor, it resonates most powerfully as a merciless study of obsession and vengeance. Ethan’s quest is fueled by his unashamedly racist hatred of Native Americans, whose cruel depiction in The Searchers reflects the harsh views that audiences held in 1956.
The Searchers had long been acknowledged as being a masterpiece in 1977, when Wayne was asked to present his list of the five greatest films ever made. As his only Western selection, Wayne chose The Searchers, and while it might seem self-serving for Wayne to select one of his own films, the passage of time has proven Wayne to be right.
Ethan Edwards Is the Darkest Character John Ford and John Wayne Created Together
John Wayne’s nuanced performance in The Searchers encompasses the film’s principal themes of hate and loss and redemption. In The Searchers, which opens in West Texas in 1868, Wayne’s character, Ethan Edwards, appears as a defeated and traumatized former Confederate soldier who arrives at the homestead of his brother, Aaron, and Aaron’s wife, Martha, whom Ethan secretly loves with his eyes.
While Ethan happily plays the role of loving uncle to his nephew Ben, and nieces Debbie and Lucy, his virulent hatred of Native Americans emerges upon meeting Aaron and Martha’s adopted son, Martin Pawley, who is one-eighth Cherokee, which is one-eighth too much for Ethan. In presenting Ethan as a racist, director John Ford doesn’t condone Ethan’s hatred of Native Americans. However, he does challenge audiences, both in 1956 and far in the future, to feel admiration for the broken, haunted man while also setting the stage for at least the possibility of his redemption at the end of the film.
Ethan’s contempt for Native Americans obviously leads to a strained relationship between Ethan and Martin, who joins Ethan’s search party after Comanche warriors murder Aaron, Ben, Martha, and kidnap Debbie and Lucy. Ethan and Martin eventually find Debbie at a Comanche camp, where she has married a Comanche warrior, Scar. This is also where Lucy was found murdered and presumably raped. Ethan’s initial reaction is to kill Debbie, as he would rather have Debbie be dead than live the rest of her life as a Native American. From this point on, Martin’s primary purpose in the film is to prevent Ethan from killing Debbie.
Ethan’s tarnished heroism and possible redemption are portrayed most poignantly during a climactic scene in which Ethan, after scalping Scar and finding Debbie, sweeps Debbie up into his arms and says, “Let’s go home, Debbie.” This is followed by a touching closing shot in which Ethan, having brought Debbie home, stands alone, framed in a doorway. Viewers are left to wonder whether these beautiful gestures and images are enough to redeem such a deeply flawed man.
‘The Searchers’ Has Influenced Many Classic Movies and Great Directors
The Searchers is one of the most important films ever made. The influence of The Searchers, both thematically and visually, can be seen in countless great films released over the past 60 years. The lonely and obsessive nature of Ethan’s quest in The Searchers influenced Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, in which loner Travis Bickle descends into madness and violence while attempting to rescue a child prostitute from sexual enslavement.
George Lucas took inspiration from The Searchers for the Star Wars film series, specifically from the iconic scene in The Searchers in which Ethan approaches the flaming wreckage of his brother’s homestead. This scene is directly referenced in the first Star Wars film, in the scene in which Luke Skywalker discovers that his aunt and uncle’s homes has been destroyed by imperial stormtroopers. Lucas again referenced the scene in the 2002 prequel film Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, in the scene in which Anakin Skywalker discovers that his mother has died in the custody of Tusken Raiders, whom Anakin kills in vengeance.
Wayne’s List of the Five Greatest Films of All Time Includes Two Wayne Films
In 1977, John Wayne, who made his final screen acting appearance in the 1976 Western film The Shootist, was asked by the publication The People’s Almanac to give his list of the five greatest films of all time. Wayne’s list included the films A Man for All Seasons, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Gone with the Wind, Wayne’s The Quiet Man, and The Searchers, which was the lone Western title on Wayne’s list.
Wayne’s selection of The Searchers reflected the growing critical sentiment that developed in the 1970s in support of The Searchers, which has routinely been cited as being one of the greatest films of all time in various polls going back to 1972. Nearly 70 years after its release, The Searchers remains a landmark achievement in cinema and one of the most emotionally powerful and morally ambiguous Westerns in history.