The Searchers [Blu-ray]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

If John Ford is the greatest Western director, The Searchers is arguably his greatest film, at once a grand outdoor spectacle like such Ford classics as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950) and a film about one man's troubling moral codes, a big-screen adventure of the 1950s that anticipated the complex themes and characters that would dominate the 1970s. John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a former Confederate soldier who returns to his brother Aaron's frontier cabin three years after the end of the Civil War. Ethan still has his rebel uniform and weapons, a large stash of Yankee gold, and no explanations as to where he's been since Lee's surrender. A loner not comfortable in the bosom of his family, Ethan also harbors a bitter hatred of Indians (though he knows their lore and language well) and trusts no one but himself. Ethan and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), Aaron's adopted son, join a makeshift band of Texas Rangers fending off an assault by renegade Comanches. Before they can run off the Indians, several homes are attacked, and Ethan returns to discover his brother and sister-in-law dead and their two daughters kidnapped. While they soon learn that one of the girls is dead, the other, Debbie, is still alive, and with obsessive determination, Ethan and Martin spend the next five years in a relentless search for Debbie -- and for Scar (Henry Brandon), the fearsome Comanche chief who abducted her. But while Martin wants to save his sister and bring her home, Ethan seems primarily motivated by his hatred of the Comanches; it's hard to say if he wants to rescue Debbie or murder the girl who has lived with Indians too long to be considered "white." John Wayne gives perhaps his finest performance in a role that predated screen antiheroes of the 1970s; by the film's conclusion, his single-minded obsession seems less like heroism and more like madness. Wayne bravely refuses to soft-pedal Ethan's ugly side, and the result is a remarkable portrait of a man incapable of answering to anyone but himself, who ultimately has more in common with his despised Indians than with his more "civilized" brethren. Natalie Wood is striking in her brief role as the 16-year-old Debbie, lost between two worlds, and Winton C. Hoch's Technicolor photography captures Monument Valley's savage beauty with subtle grace. The Searchers paved the way for such revisionist Westerns as The Wild Bunch (1969) and McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and its influence on movies from Taxi Driver (1976) to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Star Wars (1977) testifies to its lasting importance. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Features:
  • New digital high-definition transfer from restored Vista Vision picture and audio elements
  • New featurtte The Searchers: An Appreciation
  • A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne, and the Searchers, 1998 documentary narrated by John Milius
  • Introduction by John Wayne's son and The Searchers co-star Patrick Wayne
  • Commentary by director/John Ford biographer Peter Bogdanovich
  • Vintage Behind the Cameras segments from the Warner Bros. Presents TV series

AWARDS

• American Film Institute

•     Won 100 Greatest American Movies - 1998

• Directors Guild of America

•     Nominated Best Director - 1956 (John Ford)

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1988

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       John Wayne - Ethan Edwards
       Jeffrey Hunter - Martin Pawley
       Vera Miles - Laurie Jorgensen
       Ward Bond - Capt. Reverend Clayton
       Natalie Wood - Debbie Edwards, older
       Hank Worden - Mose Harper
       John Qualen - Lars Jorgensen
       John Milius - Narrated
       Olive Carey - Mrs. Jorgensen
       Henry Brandon - Chief Scar
       Ken Curtis - Charlie McCony
       Harry Carey, Jr. - Brad Jorgensen
       Antonio Moreno - Emilio Figueroa
       Lana Wood - Debbie Edwards, younger
       Walter Coy - Aaron Edwards
       Dorothy Jordan - Martha Edwards
       Pippa Scott - Lucy Edwards
       Patrick Wayne - Lieutenant Greenhill
       Beulah Archuletta - Look
       Shooting Star
       Robert Lyden - Ben Edwards
       Chief Thundercloud - Comanche chief
       Mae Marsh - Woman at fort
       Danny Borzage - Accordionist at Funeral
       Bill Steele - Nesby
       Peter Mamakos - Jerem Futterman
       Jack Pennick - Private
       Cliff Lyons - Col. Greenhill
       Ruth Clifford - Deranged woman at fort
       Nacho Galindo - Mexican bartender
       Chuck Roberson - Man at wedding

• Director:

  John Ford

• Producer:

  C.V. Whitney

• Screenwriter:

  Winton Hoch

• Book Author:

  Alan LeMay

• Screenwriter:

  Frank S. Nugent

• Cinematographer:

  Winton Hoch

• Composer (Music Score):

  Max Steiner

• Editor:

  Jack Murray

• Art Director:

  James Basevi, Frank Hotaling

• Associate Producer:

  Patrick Ford

• Executive Producer:

  Merian C. Cooper

• Set Designer:

  Victor A. Gangelin

• Costume Designer:

  C. Frank Beetson, Jr., Ann Peck, Frank Beetson, Jr.

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Howard Wilson, Hugh McDowell, Jr.

• Makeup:

  Webb Overlander

• Special Effects:

  George Brown

• First Assistant Director:

  Wingate Smith

• Script Supervisor:

  Robert Gary

REVIEW:

• Described by the director as a "psychological epic," The Searchers (1956) is John Ford's most revered Western, for its visual richness and profoundly ambiguous critique of the genre's (and America's) racism. Ford pushed John Wayne's archetypal Westerner into the realm of antiheroism, as Ethan's five-year quest to rescue his niece from Comanche chief Scar mutates into killing her when he discovers her living placidly as Scar's bride. While Ethan's lethal racism signals his insanity, Wayne's charismatic presence and Ethan's desire to salvage the family unit of "civilized" settlers carries its own sheen of Western heroism. Still, the famous final image of Ethan's departure into the desert reveals that "civilization" has no place for such an uncompromising figure. Shot on location in Colorado and Monument Valley, Ford's vividly arid Technicolor vistas render Ethan a man of the magnificent and punishing landscape, unable to reconcile his inner savagery with domestic constraints. Greeted in America as just another quality Ford oater, the film was first reclaimed by French critics for the unresolved tensions and evocative style of Ford's narrative, elevating it to the status of cinematic art. With U.S. cinephiles following suit, The Searchers deeply influenced the 1970s "film school" generation (Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader transformed it into Taxi Driver in 1976) and has since taken its place among the greatest Westerns ever made. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi