John Wayne, Lest We Forget

[MissGoddess]

How wonderful to be seeing it for the first time. It hits you smack between the eyes, for sure.

[CineMaven]

I know you know this already Miss G., but what a great story teller Ford is. This journey is soooo...much. Look at life going on (Charlie come a-courtin', I mean coming to marry Laurie) while Ethan and Martin search for Debbie. The searchers are sort of like bad pennies showing up at this wedding party. They've been gone five years? Holy cow. How is Ford mixing these comic moments seamlessly with the Search (which is deadly serious). Oh I see...he's a Master.

[MissGoddess]

I noticed this time how cool the reception was for Ethan and Marty when they return during Laurie's wedding. I'm assuming the news of the Futterman killings had filled many of the guests minds with bad feeling toward the two men. Captain/Reverend Clayton disarms Ethan. Then, of course, a fight must break out as if the two men bring rough handling with them like saddlebags. Punches, kicks, bites and swirls of dust bring everyone out of their chill and together, rooting for one boy or the other---especially the ladies. And finally, Lt. Greenhill (Pat Wayne) arrives with the news Ethan and Marty have been waiting for about Scar's location and then the men get together, Ethan is once again armed and Laurie is once again left behind. It's a really remarkable combination of serious and comic, throughout the film and especially here and in the "Look" scenes. Ford really shows the way life flips from comedy to tragedy and back again with alarming swiftness.

[CineMaven]

Ford really shows the way life flips from comedy to tragedy and back again with alarming swiftness.

Yes he does...and with ease, not jarring.

That ending.

I've seen it a hundred times, but not really in context of all the events that happen in the whole movie. So who doesn't have a family now? All along Ethan made sure Martin knew he wasn't one of them; not 'real' kin. And now it is he (Ethan) who is shut out. Or does he shut himself out? I liked the way Debbie was taken in, but still looked unsure of who these people were (the Jorgensens). Laurie runs up to Martin knowing this time his "job" is done and he can settle. But no one really seems to greet or welcome Ethan. Did his mission cost him friends, family? Were they in effect saying, "Thanxx for doing the hard job of bringing Debbie back. You can go now, we don't need ya." That door closing...did they even notice after a while that Ethan wasn't in the house with ev'rybody?

Seeing the tail end the other morning of "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town" (Gary falls for a career girl like he does in "Meet John Doe" who uses him initially but realizes he's not just her meal ticket but falls in love with him) shows such hopefulness of the people, the crowd, the community rallying around Deeds. And in the end of "The Searchers" no one rallies around Ethan. We want our boys to do the hard job so we don't have to think about it. Frank Capra would open the door. Look at how John Ford closes it...on the "hero." Am I crazy, I find that so brave of him to do.

The single-mindedness of obsession. Is it...'you got the job done, so what?'

[movieman1957]

I initially thought that the coldness of their arrival at the wedding (how coincidental that after five years they show up NOW) was more to do with that they were going to ruin the day. Laurie was set, or so she thought, and everyone else knew this was going to be trouble. Did she settle for Charlie? was she afraid of being an "old maid"?

The ending for me is that Ethan excludes himself. Everyone else is caught up in the excitement of the moment. Debbie is home after 7 or 8 years and they are so happy to see her. Laurie is just for Marty. I think in all the excitement Ethan just gets left behind but he feels outside the family. There are now two families going on and he sees there just isn't room for him. I also don't think he is the kind to really settle down. And I don't think there is really anything for him to settle down. Maybe if his brother and family had survived it would be different but you couldn't have that because that feeds his anger and his drive.

Just my thought.

[MissGoddess]

Hi Tall T

All along Ethan made sure Martin knew he wasn't one of them; not 'real' kin. And now it is he (Ethan) who is shut out. Or does he shut himself out? I liked the way Debbie was taken in, but still looked unsure of who these people were (the Jorgensens). Laurie runs up to Martin knowing this time his "job" is done and he can settle. But no one really seems to greet or welcome Ethan. Did his mission cost him friends, family? Were they in effect saying, "Thanxx for doing the hard job of bringing Debbie back. You can go now, we don't need ya." That door closing...did they even notice after a while that Ethan wasn't in the house with ev'rybody?

First of all I'm so glad you watched it all the way through and it's exciting having someone who makes movies weigh in on a favorite. Secondly, you pointed up something about the implications of the ending I've always felt myself, but can't explain so well. I used to get furious at how they just shut the door on Ethan after what he did for them, but I think beyond what Chris mentions (that the family members are caught up in the moment) Ford is definitely commenting on what you point out, namely, that the people (at least in Ford movies) who bring families and communities together, don't always fit in, and are often left to "wander". Even further, people, even history itself, forget quickly or are selective in who is to be given credit for making what they enjoy possible. The kind of men and women who start communities are often too rough, too "uncivilized" to fit into the same when it advances. You see it time and again in Ford's films, all the way back to his silents, so I disagree with Anthony Bourdain's comments that the earlier films were "simpler" than The Searchers.

Seeing the tail end the other morning of "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town" (Gary falls for a career girl like he does in "Meet John Doe" who uses him initially but realizes he's not just her meal ticket but falls in love with him) shows such hopefulness of the people, the crowd, the community rallying around Deeds. And in the end of "The Searchers" no one rallies around Ethan. We want our boys to do the hard job so we don't have to think about it. Frank Capra would open the door. Look at how John Ford closes it...on the "hero." Am I crazy, I find that so brave of him to do.

That's an interesting comparison! My first reaction is to compare the two characters, and Deeds is much more a man of the people, totally a part of his small town at least, and agreeable. Ethan is from another time, a wilder time, and not interested as Chris said, in being a part of the new way of doing things ("I don't believe in surrenders.") But it's true that both men are rejected for doing things that profit others.

The single-mindedness of obsession. Is it...'you got the job done, so what?'

right. and it's a movie that makes you think, just as in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Shane, about the conflicts involving men of violence who protect the peaceable. If it's a dirty job to be done, people would rather not be associated with the doer.

What I like about Ford is he shows it's not always out of malice that these men are not allowed to integrate, it's often the inevitable result of inertia caused by the flow of time, of history.

And Chris, about Laurie, I think she definitely made it clear she wasn't going to be an old maid and I guess she figured she didn't have much choice!

[pvitari]

I used to get furious at how they just shut the door on Ethan after what he did for them,

I never think of that as the family literally shutting the door on Ethan. They all go into the house and disappear past the frame, and when the door shuts it almost seems to shut by itself, as if John Ford is saying "and now we have come to the end of our story" -- and that if a person in the movie is shutting the door, it's Ethan himself (though not literally/physically). He's too alienated, too tormented, too... still searching... to hang up his spurs and settle down. He is the eternal wanderer.

[JackFavell]

Oh, hooray, T, that you watched all the way through! Your comments are very interesting, and show a lot of depth. Asking the hard questions! The amazing thing about THE SEARCHERS is that every time I see it, there is something else to see. I think you both hit it on the nailhead. Ethan leaves himself outside, and the family doesn't notice. He was all for the "cause" of finding Debbie, assuaging his anger and hate, but now that he has found her, he is no more than a ghost, doomed to wander like the native brave with his eyes shot out. He has no purpose, no mission, maybe for the first time in his life. Martha is dead, the woman who waited for HIM on the porch. Marty has, for all intents and purposes rejected him, his money and property, the things he brings to show his love, and he doesn't wait for redemption. I don't think he can bear to see the future - Debbie's struggles to learn the new-old ways, it would only remind him of Martha, and Debbie's degradation. He's seen too much already to let it all go. Even Mose has his rockin' chair, but Ethan is nothing but an old graveyard ghost, like Muley in The Grapes of Wrath. He's the remembrance of the past made flesh.

I appreciated Bourdain's appreciation of the film. What I got out of it this time was the insane amount of mirroring that Ford did in this film, his camera set-ups, and the horrible cost of the search.

Ford is constantly mirroring his characters, Ethan with Scar, Ethan with Marty (so expertly shown in almost the first scene, where Marty is sitting on the front steps, outside the house, alienated, later Ethan will sit in this exact same spot), Martha with Mrs. Jorgensen (and then Laurie - the only woman in the "family" to run off the porch to greet her man, signalling a change in attitude, youth and also the passage of time, more modern modes of expression creeping into life), the yellowlegs with the Comanche, Debbie with Lucy, Debbie with Look, or Debbie with the girls who've gone mad from being held captive. Even the dog has a mirror in the Comanche camp. In the end, Debbie has no mirror, and neither does Ethan or Marty, the bond is broken somehow. In order to move on, Marty must break with Ethan... he's the future, and in the future there is no place for prejudice, but there is also no place for looking back.

That scene where Ethan and the Rev./Capt. Clayton get themselves stuck between two factions of the Comanche was incredible to me, because of that mimicking effect - there is Ethan's white scouting party, horses slowly, tensely forming in a line through the river valley, filled with vengeance, and up on the ridge there are Scar's scouting parties, all lined up, also with vengeance ion their hearts - and then Ford triples them! Showing the three parties, slowly crawling forward the same direction, on their tense and fatalistic path - what is the difference between them, really?

As for the set-ups, there are so many I noticed here - the funeral party, the way Ford creates his tableaux from front to back, every plane of space used. How many scenes have men riding horses in them? How many were the same? NONE. Not only because of the varied terrain, but because of the way the camera is set. Men on horses riding up and over, down a ridge and straight toward the camera, then curving out of sight to the right, or entering the screen from way off in the upper left of the frame and then crossing zigzag forward, only to flounder in the water partway across the screen. My god, and every scene is beautiful, and evocative of some different emotion. There is one shot of the men (Rev.Capt.Clayton again), standing, tableaux style, and they have no idea what to do anymore, they've lost their resolve. They're about to give up the search. I guess most white men too, "will chase a thing till he thinks he's chased it enough." Ethan crosses decisively through the frame, so close to the camera that all we see is his head... cutting through the picture like a shadow in front of the wavering men, without stopping, he means business and we know instinctively that he is not giving up. It's a stunning shot, as stunning as the more expressionistic shots of Ethan and Marty in the desert sand and sun, or trapped between those giant rocks of the pass, it's just not as noticeable.

I never before realized how MANY people are ruined or die in the wake of THE SEARCH. Look is the obvious one, and I only last night for the first time wondered what she was really doing in the Comanche camp where she was butchered by the army (can you imagine someone showing this in 1956? - the army heedlessly killing women and children?) After thinking about it for some hours, I think pretty much without a doubt that she was trying to find Scar for Marty. How awful that the blame not only falls on the military, but on Marty himself, and all because of his stubborn need to search for Debbie.... He falls precariously close to to being lost forever to obsession, in his devil's bargain with Ethan.

As for Harry Carey, Jr, he was fabulous. This was the first time I really paid attention to his character - he was incredibly emotional, most of his role was grunting or crying, I truly consider his performance to be a great one. He crossed the line into character acting here. There is nothing flattering about his portrayal of Brad Jorgensen, who spends his time whining...as any of us would in the situation. It's a very, VERY modern way of acting and I applaud him for his leaping into it with such conviction. Brad in the end, had nothing and everything to live for, but rather foolishly and dare I say, selfishly ended his life due to an overwrought personality. He simply wasn't meant for this kind of ugly journey.

That being said, I just love his John Wayne tribute on TCM! It's very moving to me to hear him speak about Duke that way, and to relive his time on set with him and Ford. And I couldn't agree more with his canny observation that Wayne should have won oscars for THE SEARCHERS and for THE SHOOTIST. Both are very favorites for me, and I think Wayne was superlative in both movies, though he was great in pretty much all his films. And I am glad Anthony Bourdain mentioned that too, that Wayne was a hell of an actor.

[movieman1957]

I never noticed the parallels so much so I'll have to dig it out. I agree with you about Carey. He did a very good job in a thankless role. I was thinking in addition to your description that he is naive but then who isn't in the film? It seems at almost every turn someone wants to do things their which is contrary to Ethan's. Nearly every time he is proved right.

I think, as I've said before, that Carey's scene where he asks about Lucy is Wayne's finest acting moment on screen.

All of you have brought more depth to this picture. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I think we've said it all about this film that we still find more to say.

[JackFavell]

I never noticed the parallels so much so I'll have to dig it out. I agree with you about Carey. He did a very good job in a thankless role. I was thinking in addition to your description that he is naive but then who isn't in the film? It seems at almost every turn someone wants to do things their which is contrary to Ethan's. Nearly every time he is proved right.

Maybe that's his curse?

I think, as I've said before, that Carey's scene where he asks about Lucy is Wayne's finest acting moment on screen.

I swear, Chris, that EVERY time I see that scene, whether it's on the tribute to Wayne, or the actual movie, or just a clip shown randomly, I completely lose it. The way he yells at Carey, and then his voice shakes at the end, it just tears me up. I cried a lot last night. My husband watched with me, and my daughter watched somewhat, which surprised me. She had some questions for me during and afterwards. It really got me thinking. She also asked me who my favorite director was! I thought that was really funny.

All of you have brought more depth to this picture. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I think we've said it all about this film that we still find more to say.

This one seems to have endless depths.

[knitwit45]

Jacks, you and Chris and Ms. G...I am in awe of all of you. Your insights put into words what i have always felt about this film. The first time I saw it, I was 11 years old, seeing it on the 'big' screen at the neighborhood theater. Even then, I reacted to this movie differently than to others I had seen. It was my first John Wayne movie, my first "A" Western, my first time to cry watching a movie.

Again, thanks to all of you for bringing such a fresh vision to this. Yes, it definitely has many layers, and an almost bottomless depth.

[JackFavell]

Nan, you are so lucky that you got to see it first on a big screen!

It's amazing that you instinctively "got" the film at 11 years old. You were right on the money I am sure, and the fact that you remember that trip to the movies says a lot.

First of all I'm so glad you watched it all the way through and it's exciting having someone who makes movies weigh in on a favorite. Secondly, you pointed up something about the implications of the ending I've always felt myself, but can't explain so well. I used to get furious at how they just shut the door on Ethan after what he did for them, but I think beyond what Chris mentions (that the family members are caught up in the moment) Ford is definitely commenting on what you point out, namely, that the people (at least in Ford movies) who bring families and communities together, don't always fit in, and are often left to "wander". Even further, people, even history itself, forget quickly or are selective in who is to be given credit for making what they enjoy possible. The kind of men and women who start communities are often too rough, too "uncivilized" to fit into the same when it advances. You see it time and again in Ford's films, all the way back to his silents, so I disagree with Anthony Bourdain's comments that the earlier films were "simpler" than The Searchers.

I just read this over again and realized that for the entire picture, poor Mose is one of those men, outcast and not fitting in. What is he? A tracker or a guide of some kind? He's paved the way for the civilized folk, and in most movies he'd be shunned or forgotten, like Muley from Grapes of Wrath, or other "not right in the head" characters. He's another who has been in the wilderness too long, and has lost any sense of civilization along the way, maybe even losing a sense of self. In the end, Ethan kind of takes his place, while Mose is brought into the fold to spend his addled old age. I never thought before of Mose as a sort of future Ethan, someone who gives his all for the country that has grown up around him, but becomes a subject of fun or speculation for the younger people around him. I see Ethan ending up as a sadder more ugly version of Mose, in a less hospitable place.

[movieman1957]

Mose is an interesting character. As you say there was a lot more in the man than what we see in the movie. I think the most telling scene is when he is in his rocking chair and Mrs. Jorgenson says to him after he asks if he is crazy she very sweetly says that he is just old and tired.

There is affection and respect in her answer. As much for the way it is delivered as what is said. He must have had some part in setting the stage for those that came after him. I don't think you wind up in a place like that by accident. I always thought him a trapper.

It is interesting to think what becomes of Ethan. I think the thought of him ending up as Mose may be the only thing that might scare him.

[MissGoddess]

Good grief that is super what you wrote, Wendy!

Marty has, for all intents and purposes rejected him, his money and property, the things he brings to show his love, and he doesn't wait for redemption.

That is so true. Time moves on, it's their world now (the young ones), not Ethan's or Martha's. It was only through all those discussions back at TCM a couple of years ago that I began to appreciate Jeffrey Hunter's character more and how he and Ethan truly approach a father-son relationship.

I don't think he can bear to see the future - Debbie's struggles to learn the new-old ways, it would only remind him of Martha, and Debbie's degradation. He's seen too much already to let it all go. Even Mose has his rockin' chair, but Ethan is nothing but an old graveyard ghost, like Muley in The Grapes of Wrath. He's the remembrance of the past made flesh.

You could almost apply those words identically to Tom Doniphon.

and then Laurie - the only woman in the "family" to run off the porch to greet her man, signalling a change in attitude, youth and also the passage of time, more modern modes of expression creeping into life), the yellowlegs with the Comanche, Debbie with Lucy, Debbie with Look, or Debbie with the girls who've gone mad from being held captive. Even the dog has a mirror in the Comanche camp. In the end, Debbie has no mirror, and neither does Ethan or Marty, the bond is broken somehow. In order to move on, Marty must break with Ethan... he's the future, and in the future there is no place for prejudice, but there is also no place for looking back.

Brilliant! I noticed the exact same thing with the dog! And I have begun to pick up on more of these things, thanks to all our chats over the years about this movie. You bring out a rich point about the "mirroring" not just of shots but more importantly, of characters. Brilliant again!

That scene where Ethan and the Rev./Capt. Clayton get themselves stuck between two factions of the Comanche was incredible to me, because of that mimicking effect - there is Ethan's white scouting party, horses slowly, tensely forming in a line through the river valley, filled with vengeance, and up on the ridge there are Scar's scouting parties, all lined up, also with vengeance ion their hearts - and then Ford triples them! Showing the three parties, slowly crawling forward the same direction, on their tense and fatalistic path - what is the difference between them, really?

They are definitely equals in spirit. Sadly, I aslo believe that as indivduals, the so-called victors lost as much as the losers...they lost focus, vigor, self-determination, and a host of other qualities that made people like the Jorgensens, the Edwardses, Ol' Mose, et al. The losers got fenced off in reservations, the victors fenced themselves off spiritually. Here is where I empathize with Ethan's choice to wander off. Like him, I just can't feel 'at home' with that kind of restricted world. Did you notice how many shots there were that begin from within an enclosed, dark space that opens up or looks out on vast, free, wildness? Ethan is always out there in the bright, drawn almost against his will toward those dark hearths. He enters the first time as if magnetically drawn in by Martha who steps in backwards, her eyes never leaving his; the next time he's looking in at her remains; later he's dragged into the cave by Marty when they are fleeing Scar; and finally, he cannot enter at all.

As for the set-ups, there are so many I noticed here - the funeral party, the way Ford creates his tableaux from front to back, every plane of space used. How many scenes have men riding horses in them? How many were the same? NONE. Not only because of the varied terrain, but because of the way the camera is set.

I think it's impressive how Ford could squeeze so many different set-ups, so efficiently, so precisely, and so "invisibly" so that you don't see the stitches so to speak, on the work as a whole. I just began to appreciate how Stagecoach had the most sophisticated series of varied set-ups and The Searchers definitely does, too.

I never before realized how MANY people are ruined or die in the wake of THE SEARCH. Look is the obvious one, and I only last night for the first time wondered what she was really doing in the Comanche camp where she was butchered by the army (can you imagine someone showing this in 1956? - the army heedlessly killing women and children?) After thinking about it for some hours, I think pretty much without a doubt that she was trying to find Scar for Marty. How awful that the blame not only falls on the military, but on Marty himself, and all because of his stubborn need to search for Debbie.... He falls precariously close to to being lost forever to obsession, in his devil's bargain with Ethan.

I never fail to be saddened by that. Did you notice how painful it is to watch how the soldiers literally herd the women and children into a corral or barn just like cattle? Unflinching.

As for Harry Carey, Jr, he was fabulous. This was the first time I really paid attention to his character - he was incredibly emotional, most of his role was grunting or crying, I truly consider his performance to be a great one. He crossed the line into character acting here. There is nothing flattering about his portrayal of Brad Jorgensen, who spends his time whining...as any of us would in the situation. It's a very, VERY modern way of acting and I applaud him for his leaping into it with such conviction. Brad in the end, had nothing and everything to live for, but rather foolishly and dare I say, selfishly ended his life due to an overwrought personality. He simply wasn't meant for this kind of ugly journey.

He's like the many innocents that perish from that dreadfully hard environment. He died by the hand of the Comanche braves, as I'm sure Scar's sons died at white hands.

[RedRiver]

the cold dread I felt before the attack

That scene is terrifying. The quiet suspense is almost unbearable.

I think Ethan shuts himself out in the end. There may have been a time when he was comfortable sitting around the dinner table with friends and family. But that time is long gone. What happened? What changed? Some of this we know. Some of it we can only speculate. But Ethan was born to wander as surely as Shane has outlived his time.

How many times have we looked forward to a family reunion, only to get there and have nothing to say? We sit in a corner, thinking, When will this be over? Ethan can face the dangers of violent men and the elements. But not this.