The Searchers (1 Viewer)

[UKReb]

Just finished reading a new book titled The Searchers-The Making Of An American Legend written by Glenn Frankel.

In 1836 East Texas, nine year old Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanches. Raised by the tribe, she became the wife of a warrior and the mother of Comanche chief Quanah Parker. It was 24 years before US Cavalry and the Texas Rangers restored her to her real family who by then were completely foreign to her. Cynthia's story was told and retold over generations to become an American mythical tale and a part of Texas lore. A hundred odd years later the author Alan LeMay wrote his version of the story published as The Searchers. Followed by the Ford/Wayne classic western of the same name.

I found this book to be brilliantly researched and a riveting account of the battle for the American West plus a fascinating historical and anecdotal story of Cynthia Ann and how her story became a John Ford movie. Probably the greatest western that ever came out of Hollywood. I read the whole book in two sittings. Thoroughly recommended for any Western history and Western movie fans.

Bob

 

[larso]

This is a fascinating topic. I thought I knew the film quite well but I was still surprised at the depth it had (Jack told me - he's quite an authority on it). That girls scream when she realises the Indians are coming sends shivers! There are a few differences to the book by Lemay. The film version is the more satisfying to me.

One line that sticks in my mind - directed at John Wayne "I don't think I've seen you since the surrender. (they were both former Confederate soldiers) In fact I don't think I saw you at the surrender." Funny the things that stick in your mind.

 

[Jack]

This is a fascinating topic. I thought I knew the film quite well but I was still surprised at the depth it had (Jack told me - he's quite an authority on it). That girls scream when she realises the Indians are coming sends shivers! There are a few differences to the book by Lemay. The film version is the more satisfying to me.

One line that sticks in my mind - directed at John Wayne "I don't think I've seen you since the surrender. (they were both former Confederate soldiers) In fact I don't think I saw you at the surrender." Funny the things that stick in your mind.

One of the great movies. There is, indeed, great depth to it. The tragedy of Wayne's love for his brother's wife is very moving. When she holds his reb coat close and almost smells to before putting it away ... The burning of the house that was copied in Star Wars ... when he returns from burying the older girl and starts digging a hole with his knife in a subconscious reenactment of what they did to her ... surprising depth for a movie of the period.

 

[lancer]

Bob, this is a book that has been on my 'buy' list, but I just haven't gotten to it yet. I will have make a greater effort to get it. The movie is my favorite Wayne/Ford movie. It is just brilliant on many levels and I know I will enjoy the history behind the movie as much as I do watching it. My favorite scene in any movie is the one where Ethan has to tell Brad what he saw wasn't Lucy in her blue dress, but a buck. It is overpowering sequence. -- Al

 

[Fubar]

Sounds like a great book. I'll add it to my Amazon list of must buy.
As far as the movie, it is my sentimental favorite Western.
A few years ago watching it on cable , a notion struck me.I could be completely off but here's a theory that occurred to me.
Ethan has been gone/ estranged from his brother and family for many years and does not return home until several years after the war.
Upon his return , the brothers meet, are civil and respectable, but there is obvious tension between them.
There seems to be something between Martha and Ethan as well. Subtle, but it seems they love each other or have some bond greater than mutual love and respect for inlaws.
When the farm is raided and burned , who does Ethan call out for repeatedly? Martha.
Ethan and Martin , are driven, obsessed, simply will not give up in the search for Debbie.Understandable searching for a missing child or anyone for that matter.
But, Could it be, that Debbie is Martha and Ethan's child?

Probably not, but watch it again with this notion in mind.

FubARR

 

[pugio]

Sounds like a great book. I'll add it to my Amazon list of must buy.
As far as the movie, it is my sentimental favorite Western.
A few years ago watching it on cable , a notion struck me.I could be completely off but here's a theory that occurred to me.
Ethan has been gone/ estranged from his brother and family for many years and does not return home until several years after the war.
Upon his return , the brothers meet, are civil and respectable, but there is obvious tension between them.
There seems to be something between Martha and Ethan as well. Subtle, but it seems they love each other or have some bond greater than mutual love and respect for inlaws.
When the farm is raided and burned , who does Ethan call out for repeatedly? Martha.
Ethan and Martin , are driven, obsessed, simply will not give up in the search for Debbie.Understandable searching for a missing child or anyone for that matter.
But, Could it be, that Debbie is Martha and Ethan's child?

Probably not, but watch it again with this notion in mind.

FubARR

Interesting....

 

[Fubar]

Or perhaps that's the story and I am incredibly dense for not picking up on it before.
Maybe I'm right for once? " That'll be the day"

 

[marco55]

I think it was John Wayne's finest movie.What sticks in my mind is old Mose and his rocking chair.I saw the guy who played Mose in a movie over 30 years after The Searchers and he still looked the same.{eek3}^&grin.I put a thread on the other day of a movie coming out in the fall about girls being captured by indians but in the 18th cen.,based on a book by one of their ancestors.
Mark

 

[Jack]

Or perhaps that's the story and I am incredibly dense for not picking up on it before.
Maybe I'm right for once? " That'll be the day"

I do not think that there was a belief that the child was actually Wayne's but it was the child he wanted to have with the women he loved. Everyone knows about the forbidden feelings - when his siter in law packs away his coat and is obviously treating it as a relic the Texas Ranger diverts his eyes so that he is not forced to confront what everyone else in the room is painfully aware of but cannot acknowledge. There is also an argument that the reason Wayne pursues the rapists so obsessively is, in part, because of his guilt that what they have done is a very, very, very extreme extension of his own feelings for his brother's wife. He plays the 'outsider' - always framed by a doorway, particularly in the final scene when he cannot re-enter the house and must revert to his wandering. What is also hinted at is the fact that he has lived with the Indians and understands them - look at the rifle cover and his later shooting out of the dead Indian's eyes which indicate he has some extended experience with their belief system. He shoots the indians as they are retreating and the 'bushwackers' in the back which is also intended to show that he lives outside of society's norms and expectations. Larso wrote an a University assignment on the book - which I must add, he did very well in - but when I read it I observed that he had not mentioned Edwards' racism which underpins his fear of racial pollution. Larso's reply was - 'I thought it was so obvious it didn't need stating'. Undergraduate literary studies in a left wing institution - cannot beat it!

 

[larso]

"Larso wrote an a University assignment on the book - which I must add, he did very well in - but when I read it I observed that he had not mentioned Edwards' racism which underpins his fear of racial pollution. Larso's reply was - 'I thought it was so obvious it didn't need stating'. Undergraduate literary studies in a left wing institution - cannot beat it!"

Yes I still got 90% for that piece but the racism element was less interesting to me than the other (quite valid) things I was also saying. I wonder whether it was a childhood watching Westerns - fighting Indians seemed to be just the natural way of things and I rarely twigged to the racist element of it. I also never picked up on that unspoken love of his sister-in-law. Nor did I pick up on the rape element, though it's obvious now. How young was I when I watched it I now wonder? I have read since that rape of white women by Indians was actually quite rare. Though the practice of force-marrying them was common, so it was certainly happening in that context. I also read that the 'Captive' narrative was the first uniquely American story type. The sexual element in particular apparently played very well in Puritan times.

 

[Jack]

"Larso wrote an a University assignment on the book - which I must add, he did very well in - but when I read it I observed that he had not mentioned Edwards' racism which underpins his fear of racial pollution. Larso's reply was - 'I thought it was so obvious it didn't need stating'. Undergraduate literary studies in a left wing institution - cannot beat it!"

Yes I still got 90% for that piece but the racism element was less interesting to me than the other (quite valid) things I was also saying. I wonder whether it was a childhood watching Westerns - fighting Indians seemed to be just the natural way of things and I rarely twigged to the racist element of it. I also never picked up on that unspoken love of his sister-in-law. Nor did I pick up on the rape element, though it's obvious now. How young was I when I watched it I now wonder? I have read since that rape of white women by Indians was actually quite rare. Though the practice of force-marrying them was common, so it was certainly happening in that context. I also read that the 'Captive' narrative was the first uniquely American story type. The sexual element in particular apparently played very well in Puritan times.

I am sure that there are other unspoken loves in your past that would benefit from some equally open and honest discussion!

Funny, after all these years I too remember that you got 18/20. It was all down hill from there!

 

[lancer]

I have always loved the movie since seeing it as a kid who watched every western movie/tv show that I could. It was years before I picked up on a lot of the elements such as the racism and the feelings Ethan has for his brother's wife. In retrospect, as an adult, it is hard to believe that it took me so long to pick up on these things, but I suppose that it was in part because the westerns were sort of a 'pure' element to me as a kid. Good and bad were obvious and neccesary, with the elements of real life pushed into the background. 'The Searchers' is quite a deep western that I needed to grow into, to grow up, to really enjoy. -- Al

 

[larso]

"It was years before I picked up on a lot of the elements such as the racism and the feelings Ethan has for his brother's wife. In retrospect, as an adult, it is hard to believe that it took me so long to pick up on these things, but I suppose that it was in part because the westerns were sort of a 'pure' element to me as a kid. Good and bad were obvious and neccesary, with the elements of real life pushed into the background. 'The Searchers' is quite a deep western that I needed to grow into, to grow up, to really enjoy. -- Al"

Well said Al, that sums it up for me as well.

 

[RPZ]

This is probably my favorite Wayne film, and at his best. There are so many elements to this film; intense drama, complex emotions, and real comedy. Great cinematography. It has everything, complimented by great supporting actors.

 

[lancer]

This is probably my favorite Wayne film, and at his best. There are so many elements to this film; intense drama, complex emotions, and real comedy. Great cinematography. It has everything, complimented by great supporting actors.

The point about the supporting actors is well taken. The cast was just superb. To those of us who grew up on the Ford/Wayne westerns, many of the actors in The Searchers became like old friends. They appeared in many of the Ford/Wayne westerns and in many of the films that those two made independent of each other. They provided a real continuity to the pictures and their characters, regardless of the genre of any given film in which they appeared. In particular, the connection between Ford, Wayne, and the Carey family provides a fascinating backstory to The Searchers. Well, I guess it is no use. I now have to go watch The Searchers again, for the umpteenth time.:wink2:^&grin^&cool -- Al

 

[UKReb]

Guys

Pleased to see this thread of mine has generated such a great batch of discussion points and darn interesting posts. Much like Jack, Larso and Al I too could write a full thesis on this movie. But rather than bore the pants off my fellow froggers I'll just make a couple of comments to what has been raised in the replies.

Jack you mention racism within the movie which one most certainly cannot discount and this was not the first time Ford placed it front and centre within a movie. Lt Col Owen Thursday in Fort Apache is not only a bigot to his own troops but a downright racist to the Indian and gets his come uppance in the finale. But in my opinion Ford balanced Ethan Edwards racism perfectly in The Searchers. Scar is a mirror image of Ethan. Both hate each other but also respect each other as warriors. (Evident in the scene in Scar's tent where they both joust each other with words and taunts). Ethan has lost his war with the Confederacy and Scar is now in the process of losing his war with the whiteman. He has lost two sons killed by white settlers and now seeks revenge by killing as many of them as he can and taking their women as captives. Likewise Ethan has lost a family and is willing to kill as many Comanches as needed to even the score. In LeMay's book Ethan (named Amos in the novel) is killed in the attack on the Indian village but Ford deliberately changed the ending, not because John Wayne shouldn't die in his movies as some critics are wont to claim, but because Ford wanted to punish the character Ethan by letting him live and just like the Comanche's eyes he shot out earlier in the story, Ethan Edwards must now "wander forever between the winds". This I consider to be Ford's brilliance as a visual storyteller by succinctly dealing with Ethan's racism-not by killing him but by letting him live. Ethan has sacrificed himself and his happiness for others who now no longer need him.

I remember reading an article many years ago based on some film historian interviewing Wayne. The historian made a statement along the lines of "That was a great part you had as the racist villain in The Searchers". With gritted teeth and a look that would have made Ethan proud Wayne spat back "He was no racist villain he was a man living in his time. The Indians rape and killed his wife and kidnapped his girl (Now was that a Freudian slip from Wayne if it was that's in line with Fubar's comment on this thread). Finally Wayne said to the by now shaking interviewer. " Tell me what the hell you would have done fellah?"

Bob

 

[lancer]

Taking Fubar's theory and Bob's account of the Wayne interview 'slip', I now must add another dimension to my watching of The Searchers, as I have never entertained the idea that Debbie may have been Ethan's child. How far do we go with this? What about Lucy? I would like to think that Ethan was just so much in love with Martha that he just thought of Lucy and Debbie as 'his own'. The alternative, that one or more of the kids were his, just doesn't comfortably mesh with my idea of Ethan's character. But that is just my starry-eyed idealism again.:wink2: At any rate, Ethan sure loved Martha. I think that Aaron was aware of it as well, even though the closest he seemed willing to confront it was his question to Ethan about why he hadn't cleared out before the war. Remember, he made a point of saying that Ethan had stayed beyond what reason might expect. Aaron had to know. -- Al

 

[UKReb]

Taking Fubar's theory and Bob's account of the Wayne interview 'slip', I now must add another dimension to my watching of The Searchers, as I have never entertained the idea that Debbie may have been Ethan's child. How far do we go with this? What about Lucy? I would like to think that Ethan was just so much in love with Martha that he just thought of Lucy and Debbie as 'his own'. The alternative, that one or more of the kids were his, just doesn't comfortably mesh with my idea of Ethan's character. But that is just my starry-eyed idealism again.:wink2: At any rate, Ethan sure loved Martha. I think that Aaron was aware of it as well, even though the closest he seemed willing to confront it was his question to Ethan about why he hadn't cleared out before the war. Remember, he made a point of saying that Ethan had stayed beyond what reason might expect. Aaron had to know. -- Al

Al

No doubt a lot of people would say "Hell it's only a movie" but I cannot recall a film that has influenced so many "modern" filmmakers as The Searchers has done-Spielberg; Lucas; Milius; Scorsese; Dante; Demme and Monte Hellman, to name just a few, have all gone on record to state the fact that this Ford/Wayne masterpiece made them want to make movies. And then consider all the "older" ordinary Joe public fans of the film-like us ^&grin- its always in their top three favourite westerns. I know it left an indelible impression on me and a very good friend of mine when we first caught it on screen.

In the late 1960s me and this friend-both young engineering grads-were seconded for six months to the Ministry of Defence in London. During our secondment the National Film Theatre (now known as BFI Southbank) ran a series of Ford movies and The Searchers played for five consecutive nights. We went every single night to watch it and endlessly discussed the nuances of the story, the characters and the location to such an extent that we both promised ourselves that one day we would travel to Monument Valley and stand on John Ford Point (in the movie that's where Ethan lowers Martin down into the valley below where the Comanche camp was located). Years passed and my good chum never did make it to Utah, as unfortunately he was prematurely taken to the happy hunting grounds. But some 40 years after first viewing that movie- in 2007- yours truly finally stood on John Ford Point. As I looked across that breathtaking magnificent vista I murmered to myself "Here you go Jim that view's for the both of us"

 

[lancer]

Al

No doubt a lot of people would say "Hell it's only a movie" but I cannot recall a film that has influenced so many "modern" filmmakers as The Searchers has done-Spielberg; Lucas; Milius; Scorsese; Dante; Demme and Monte Hellman, to name just a few, have all gone on record to state the fact that this Ford/Wayne masterpiece made them want to make movies. And then consider all the "older" ordinary Joe public fans of the film-like us ^&grin- its always in their top three favourite westerns. I know it left an indelible impression on me and a very good friend of mine when we first caught it on screen.

In the late 1960s me and this friend-both young engineering grads-were seconded for six months to the Ministry of Defence in London. During our secondment the National Film Theatre (now known as BFI Southbank) ran a series of Ford movies and The Searchers played for five consecutive nights. We went every single night to watch it and endlessly discussed the nuances of the story, the characters and the location to such an extent that we both promised ourselves that one day we would travel to Monument Valley and stand on John Ford Point (in the movie that's where Ethan lowers Martin down into the valley below where the Comanche camp was located). Years passed and my good chum never did make it to Utah, as unfortunately he was prematurely taken to the happy hunting grounds. But some 40 years after first viewing that movie- in 2007- yours truly finally stood on John Ford Point. As I looked across that breathtaking magnificent vista I murmered to myself "Here you go Jim that view's for the both of us"

Bob, that is a beautiful story. And it is what I call true dedication. The view is magnificent and I'm sure Jim appreciated it. -- Al

 

[RPZ]

Monument Valley was one of Wayne's favorite places too.