I hadn't seen The Searchers for years, maybe since the 70s. I picked up the 50th Anniversary DVD set at Half Price Books today for a cheapish 7 bucks. It's coupon week again and today was 30% off. Sadly it was the only thing I found at the Ford Parkway store.
The Searchers came out in 1956 and it's set 90 years before. The movie is based on a novel by Alan LeMay, it was adapted to screenplay by Frank S Nugent, John Ford is the director. It's said to be the best of the Westerns and others rank it very high in top 100 film lists. I'm not much for Best of Lists, my own rankings are more fluid as time passes, but it is a great movie that deserves it's praise. Ford is taking the Western into new ground and Wayne is at the top of his game. I'm certainly in the camp that says John Wayne can be a great actor. He did some of his best work with John Ford. In The Searchers Wayne gets a great script that gives him a complex character to play and Ford gives him a beautiful place to play him.The rest of the cast is equally up to their parts.
The DVD set has a digest size reproduction of the Dell Comic adaptation of the movie. There are also reprints of press kit material and news paper clippings. There's a second DVD with featurettes and the like. Ford had a lot of behind the scenes film shot and it was presented on the Warner's Presents TV show. That program, hosted by Gig Young, shows up on the second disc. Newer featurettes also use some of the making of footage. Peter Bogdanovich does a commentary on the movie. He'd gotten to know both Ford and Wayne in the last years of their lives and he talks a bit about that.
It's filled with great shots of Monument Valley. Ford was as good at putting amazing panoramas up on the screen as he was working with his actors. I need to go re-watch some of other films, most I haven't seen since in a long number of years.
The Searchers is a bit of a tough story, filled with danger, hardship, rape, racism, hatred, and vengeance, yet neither side in the conflict is shown to be any better than the other. There's even a bit of compassion fighting to stay alive. It was a tough place, the old west, I wouldn't want to live there. I'd rather visit briefly from the safety of my comfy chair. Glad to have picked this up, it's a welcome addition to the pile, I'll try to watch it again some time. I know I've been wanting to watch Rio Bravo again. I'll have to dig that out.
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