The Searchers is one of those pieces of seminal cinematic Americana I’ve been meaning to catch up with for quite some time now — luckily for me it was just released on 4K UHD thanks to Warner Archive in their first 4K release. The 1956 film dubbed by some as “the greatest western of all time” was directed by one of the first American auteurs John Ford, starring John Wayne in their twelfth of fourteen on screen collaborations. The story goes, the pair met while Wayne was a prop man at Fox and the two really hit it off, which is apparent not only in how naturalistic Wayne’s performance feels on screen, but how he manages to deliver a masterclass in subtext as well. The script, which was based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May was inspired by some very real events and explored some of the darkest fears of the early American settlers.
The film begins in 1868 three years after the end of the Civil War and follows Ethan Edwards (Wayne) who fought alongside the Confederacy, which here is shorthand for he’s VERY racist. Sometime after he returns home to his brother and his family in West Texas, he is recruited by a group of Rangers who are rounding up a posse to look into some missing cattle; which turns out to be a distraction for a Comanche raid on his brother’s homestead. While the rest of the family is killed in the raid and the aftermath, Ethan’s young niece Debbie and her older sister Lucy are abducted. It’s then up to Ethan and his brother’s adopted son Martin Pawley, who is one-eighth Cherokee – to look for the missing women in a search that transpires over half a decade. It’s through this journey of searching, that both men learn a lot about not only the world around them but each other, overcoming their differences.
It’s interesting watching The Searchers, after having viewed Kevin Costner’s vastly underrated western masterwork Horizon. That film begins with a similar albeit much more explicit raid, but also digs into the why on the Native American side of the conversation. Here we come in post that inciting incident, but thanks to history, we know why. The Comanche in particular migrated down to Texas in 1743 and quickly became a force to be reckoned with, quickly gaining control of the Texas plains, while nearly wiping out the Apache who once called Texas home in the process. In the late 1800s when The Searchers transpires, the US government was in the process of taking land from the Comanche people and placing them on reservations — which as you’d expect did not sit well with the once great warriors who had just taken the land themselves
This danger of the new frontier is front and center and drives the plot and supplies the dread of The Searchers. For a film made in 1956, it does surprisingly dig into the darker aspects of what the risks were for these settlers with a daring subtlety. Living on these stolen lands, the Comanche raids meant certain death for the men, the women were often assaulted and killed after the fact, and the children were sometimes kidnapped or simply killed. The Comanche tribe in particular were known for their brutality, but we do see it’s not just the Comanche Ethan has to contend with, but his greedy caucasian counterparts as well. There’s a dog eat dog level of lawlessness in the west at this point that was exploited by all, since the Civil War had depleted the soldiers who once kept peace and order in the new frontier.
The film given its rather one sided narrative and time of its release, still does an amazing job at showing how Ethan learns to grow past his racist view through the runtime. This is thanks to his relationship with his companion Martin who rode with him for those five years and their experiences along the way. It’s that change of heart that ultimately comes into play once the two men reach the end of the search, and discover what happened to the young girls taken from the homestead. You could say acting-wise John Wayne is just being John Wayne here, but he manages to craft a powerful performance from nuanced inflections of dialog and body language that speaks louder than words. It culminates in a transformation in Ethan throughout the runtime that’s hard to miss.
Filmed in Vistavision and presented on this disc in a new 4K transfer from the original negative, this scan flawlessly presents Winton C. Hoch awe inspiring cinematography for home viewing. This is pre-cgi, so they’re really out there riding horses – in these gorgeous landscapes of Monument Valley, both in Arizona and Utah that here stands in for Texas. The film format and time period definitely influence the overall vintage color palette perfectly presented here with an image that has a stunning contrast and overall breathtaking visual quality. This film presentation is paired with a wealth of extras on the blu-ray ported from previous releases, which along with a great doc on the film also includes a feature length commentary on the film by Peter Bogdanovich, who himself did a documentary on John Ford. It’s truly a fantastic package that does its best to present the film in the best and most comprehensive way possible.
This was my first time watching The Searchers and I couldn’t have imagined a better way possible to experience it, than this reference quality 4k presentation. And then, afterwards being able to dig into the extras for that extra bit of context and history of the production. It’s something that I hope Warner Archive does more of, especially with these older high profile films to introduce them to a new generation. While The Searchers is a surprisingly dark take on the settlement of America, it’s sadly a bit one sided, that would be my only quip about the western masterpiece – that is thankfully not completely without hope. I don’t think even today we are really ready to start hearing both sides of this difficult conversation about how this country was really founded, but I think The Searchers tries to start that conversation in its own way, and that’s more than most.
