The Searchers
Short description
Set in Texas a few years after the Civil War, The Searchers follows Ethan Edwards, a former Confederate soldier who returns to his brother's ranch. When Comanches attack the family home, killing his relatives and carrying off his young niece Debbie, Ethan sets out after them, joined by his part-Indian nephew Martin Pawley. What begins as a search for the girl becomes a years-long pursuit across the West, driven by Ethan's hatred of the Comanches and by doubts about what has become of Debbie.
John Wayne stars as Ethan, with Jeffrey Hunter as Martin, Vera Miles as Laurie Jorgensen, Ward Bond as Reverend Captain Clayton, Natalie Wood as Debbie and John Qualen as Lars Jorgensen. John Ford directed from a screenplay by Frank S. Nugent; the picture was produced by C.V. Whitney and Patrick Ford for Warner Bros. Pictures and C.V. Whitney Pictures, on a budget of about 4 million dollars. It runs 119 minutes.
Released in May 1956, the film is the nineteenth of the thirty-one features Ford directed, arriving between Mister Roberts and The Wings of Eagles. Critics rated it 9.4 out of 10 across 102 reviews, clearly above the audience scores of 7.8 on IMDb from roughly 103,000 votes and 7.7 on TMDB from about 1,600 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was included in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1989.
- The film tops the American Film Institute's list of the best Westerns.
- The film is based on the novel of the same name by Alan Le May (1954) about the events of the Texan-Indian Wars.
- Although the Western takes place in Texas, Ford, as was his custom, filmed in Monument Valley (Utah).
- The innovative widescreen VistaVision technology was used for filming.
- During a break in filming, John Wayne found Bela Archuleta crying in one of the wigwams. When asked what was wrong, she replied that she would have to miss her son's wedding because of the shooting schedule. Wayne demanded that filming be stopped for a few days and personally arranged for Archuleta to fly to California for her son's wedding.
- During the filming of this movie, Natalie Wood was still in school, and sometimes John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter (who played Martin in the film) had to pick her up from school before shooting. Wood’s classmates were simply shocked.
- The filming of the scene where John Wayne’s character talks about finding and burying Lucy (played by Pippa Scott) was not without its problems due to Ward Bond’s sudden urge to shave. Wayne acted flawlessly, but the camera suddenly turned off. Wayne asked the operator what was wrong, but then the camera started working again, and filming continued. The camera was fine, but Bond had pulled the plug as he decided to shave at that moment, using an electric razor. No one on the set said anything to Ford, as he might have inflicted physical harm on Bond in a fit of rage. Several years later, after Bond’s death, operator Winton S. Hoch explained what had happened to Ford. According to Hoch, Ford turned pale with anger and was speechless for a moment.
- The scenes of the bison hunt were filmed in one of the reserves in Canada. John Ford learned that the reserve administration was shooting animals sick with brucellosis and asked to be allowed to send a film crew to the location.
- “The Searchers” was John Ford’s first Western in five years. After a series of failures, he considered quitting directing.
- During filming, one of the young Native American children fell ill with pneumonia, and John Wayne summoned his own plane and ordered the pilot to take the child to the hospital. For this, the Navajo tribe gave him the nickname “Man with the Big Eagle.”
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