The Searchers (Widescreen Edition)

The film itself, of course, is brilliant, one of my 10 faves, and stunning even when seen in its old 1.33:1 ratio. Just don't watch the fake widescreen version -- and write to WB immediately to demand they release a proper edition of this classic!!!!!!


STUNNING!!   August 26, 2006
Noirist (USA)
21 out of 24 found this review helpful

This HD-DVD version of The Searchers is stunning. Film quality. This transfer is so good that I am watching the movie over again beautiful frame by beautiful frame. Stunning. Stunning. Stunning. If you fancy yourself a movie buff, it's time to get your Toshiba HD-A1 and 1080p TV so you can watch this amazing movie in all its 1080p24 VistaVision glory. Stunning, I tell you!


The best of Ford   January 21, 2000
19 out of 20 found this review helpful

As "The Searchers" approaches the half-century mark, this 1956 film may fail to conect with modern viewers. Indeed, the old fashioned acting styles are jarring and the film's racial themes seem like old business.

Nonetheless, when seen in the context of its time and to other films around it, it stands tall.

As much as any Ford film, "The Searchers" is a story about a family reunited, a theme to which Ford returned time and again. But in no other Ford film is that theme played out at such a tremendous emotional and spiritual cost.

The implication that Debbie is Ethan's daughter and not his niece comes from Ford and not Alan LeMay's original story. By giving us a date--1868--in the opening fade, then belaboring the exposition of Debbie's age, Ethan's long absence, the barely suppressed tenderness Ethan displays toward Martha and his guilty uneasiness with his brother, it is not hard to do the math. Debbie is Ethan's daughter.

As the theme of family plays out, there is repeated discussion about what constitutes blood kin, especially regarding Marty, who was once "saved" by Ethan, just as Ethan will "save" Debbie. Ethan discounts Marty's entire existence because Marty is one-eighth Cherokee.

Conversely, Ethan endures an epic search for Debbie because she is not only kin and perhaps his last remaining relative, but in fact his daughter. The thought both motivates and crazes Ethan.

Whether Ford decided to hide this dramatic construct because 1950's morality would have disapproved the overt depiction of an illegitimate child (especially in a horse opera!) or because the idea simply served to motivate Ford through the movie is unimportant.

What is as important to this film as the scenery in Monument Valley or the chaotic corniness of a pre-massacre breakfast at the Edwards place or a rough and tumble wedding sequence is that Ford could submerge information and still make it resonate through every frame of the film.

Perhaps the agonized Ethan Edwards speaks for Ford when he says, "What do you want me to do? Draw you a picture?" Ford is as important for what he doesn't show us as for what he does.


The Searchers, Slam-bang Western   November 6, 2002
Phillip E. Hardy (Huntington Beach, California United States)
17 out of 20 found this review helpful

In 1955, John Ford went to Monument Valley to film what has since become his western masterpiece, "The Searchers". This scenic American backdrop was the perfect setting for this atmospheric story. In this film, John Wayne turns in his greatest performance as Ethan Edwards, an ex rebel soldier returning home from the Civil War under mysterious circumstances. However, his homecoming is short lived, as Reverend Samuel Clayton and his band of Texas Rangers recruit him and his adopted nephew, Martin Pawley to repel a party of Comanche Indians (Or Native Americans for the politically correct) from the neighboring ranches. Unfortunately, the raiders kill Ethan's brother and beloved sister-in-law, in addition to capturing his nieces Lucy and little Debbie. After setting out after the marauders, Ethan quickly clashes with Reverend Clayton, who questions him on his harsh tactics in fighting Comanches. In a desire to employ aggressive measures, Edwards leaves the larger group with Martin Pawley and Lucy's betrothed, Brad Jorgensen, growling, that "he is giving the orders." While hot on the path of the raiding party, Ethan notices that several Comanche's have split off from the trail. Urging Marty and Brad to wait, the older man goes to investigate the broken tracks of four riders. In a brilliantly acted scene, Wayne's character Ethan comes down the canyon and digs his hunting knife into the sand. Shaken to his core, the Confederate veteran has just discovered the mutilated corpse of his beautiful niece Lucy. Edwards initially keeps this grisly discovery to himself. When Marty asks the older man about his missing rebel coat, a dazed Ethan tells him that he "has lost it." Later that evening, the three men locate the Indian camp and Brad mistakenly believes that he sees Lucy wearing her favorite blue dress. Ethan then tells the excited young man that it is in fact a Comanche buck wearing Lucy's dress. When Brad insists he has seen Lucy, Edwards informs him that he buried her body back at the canyon, wrapped inside of his missing coat. In an act of suicidal rage, Jorgensen runs into an Indian camp to share Lucy's fate. For the next five years, Ethan and Marty myopically hunt for young Debbie, who is the captive of a Comanche chief named Scar. Along the way, Ethan manages to dispatch bushwhackers and Marty breaks up the wedding of his childhood sweetheart, in a scene brimming with comic relief. Finally, the two men rejoin Captain Clayton and his Texas Rangers to take on the Comanche's in a climatic battle, where the long-suffering Debbie is eventually rescued. For this film, the seasoned director assembled a cast of his regulars, including Ken Curtis, John Qualen, Hank Worden and Harry Carey Jr. This bunch turns in the kind of solid character acting that moviegoers came to expect from a John Ford vehicle. Ward Bond is superb as Captain Clayton and delivers some of the film's most amusing dialogue. Additionally, a lovely, teenage Natalie Wood has about five minutes of screen time playing the older Debbie. However, at the center of this great movie, is the relationship between the two searchers, played by Wayne and ably supported by Jeffery Hunter, who must ride together day after endless day in their search for the elusive Chief Scar. The chemistry between these two actors makes this film a classic of the western genre.