John Wayne, Lest We Forget

[movieman1957]

Good Lord, if critics missed it they must not have been paying attention.

I'm coming someday. Thanks.

[Lzcutter]

We'll keep a light on for you!

The other thing that I'm surprised they didn't pick up on (they tended to look at the movie as another Ford Western, nothing special though they did tend to like Wayne's performance) is the extent to which Scar is Ethan's dark side/doppelganger.

Scar, by destroying Aaron and his family, does what Ethan secretly wants to but cannot do (destroy his brother and bust up the family by declaring his love for Martha) and which Ethan keeps buried so deep inside him that he cannot admit those thoughts to himself.

Ethan tries to atone for those feelings by setting out to find his nieces and bring them back but in the end, that atonement is not enough and Ethan realizes that in trying to atone for that sin (desiring not just another man's wife but his own brother's wife), he has become more like the man he hunted than he thought possible. In the end, he is much like the Indian whose eyes he shot out, forced to travel between two worlds, never fitting in to either one.

[movieman1957]

That is what I like about Ford and his westerns (and maybe what makes good films in general) is that they work on different levels. It works as a straight story of a rescue but also on the much deeper level that you mention.

Getting an education from you and the gang makes it all the more interesting.

[RedRiver]

they tended to look at the movie as another Ford Western, nothing special

I imagine that was the case with some critics. Just another cowboy movie!

[MissGoddess]

Totally unrelated to the discussion but irrisistible, I recently added this photo still to my site. It's of Wayne from John Ford's first talkie feature, The Black Watch (1929). I'm not sure who the menacing fellow is and I don't remember any scene like this in the movie, in fact I didn't think Duke was more than a bit player in it, though it's been a while since I saw it:

[movieman1957]

It's probably staged but isn't he so young?

[Sue Sue Applegate]

'Dorable, staged or not! Look at the twinkle in those eyes...

[MissGoddess]

Young and green...and so cute. Filming I believe took place in 1928 so this was almost two years before he landed the plum role in Walsh's The Big Trail. Since his role in The Black Watch is marginal at best, it looks like Ford was already getting studio personnel to pay attention to the up and coming actor.

[JackFavell]

Oh my goodness, look at those masses of curly hair!

[pvitari]

Miss Goddess, where is that fabulous picture of John Wayne on your website? I looked but couldn't find it and I want to send all my John Wayne pals there to see it! ;)

I'd suggest the guy in the headdress was Ben Johnson but he was only 10 years old at the time. :)

(Note extra in background between the two actors in foreground:)

[MissGoddess]

Hi Paula,
I had the Black Watch photo in "Miscellaneous" before but now it's the first one in the John Wayne gallery:

http://directedbyjohnford.com/gallery.h ... =johnwayne

Is your clip from Tarzan? Judging by all the exciting doubling he did in that one, Ben was the real Tarzan.

[JackFavell]

"Ethan, don't let the boys waste their lives in vengeance.."

My main observation about THE SEARCHERS this time through has to do with the way the film is shot, specifically the opening and closing scenes. We are witnessing time in this film, the ebb and flow of it. It stops for no one. It's like a river, one that you either ride, or try to cross. Even when you try to go against it, it still slips silently by.

When the movie starts, we hear the familiar haunting song played over the credits:

What makes a man to wander?
What makes a man to roam?
What makes a man leave bed and board
And turn his back on home?
Ride away, ride away, ride away

A man will search his heart and soul
Go searchin' way out there
His peace of mind he knows he'll find
But where, oh Lord, Lord where?
Ride away, ride away, ride away

As the mournful song ends, the credits fade from the screen, and in perfect blackness, the words Texas 1868 appear... they stand for quite a long count. As those words fade away, we are left in that same blackness for several beats, there is nothing. Time stands still. And then, almost imperceptibly, the door opens and the beautiful and moving Lorena, a civil war ballad, starts to play. Our first 'look' is at a staggeringly beautiful Monument Valley. It's perfect, that country, unspoiled and so clean, the sky so clear you can see for a hundred miles. We are in a different time. We sense Martha now as she moves into the outdoors and we follow her. She peers under her hand, shielding her eyes from the sun, and we begin to notice a figure, moving in the distance coming slowly, relentlessly closer. With the same slow gait as the man in the distance, that strikingly clean sunny land won't remain so. Through the course of the movie, the countryside will change in tone, grow dark and fraught with terrors, and gain patina imperceptibly over time. It struck me so forcibly this time that what we are witnessing in that first shot through the open door is THE UNSULLIED PAST, very markedly pointed up for us by John Ford. Once you cross that threshold, the clock will start ticking, and we will move inexorably through the present, into the future.

Snows fall and then melt, more than once, and men shed their heavy coats, and still, we go on. the screen blackens and then colors up again, over and over.

By the end of the film, after all of Ethan and Marty's and Debbie's travails, what we are witnessing in that beautifully framed doorway IS that future....the land has been twisted and burned out of almost all recognition, darkened with our hatreds and our foolhardiness. The men are not clean, nor are their thoughts. They've been scarred like the land. The only thing left that IS clean is THE FUTURE - Laurie and Marty's future, to be exact. Laurie is the first of the women to run off the porch to her man, she won't stand with her hand over her eyes, shading them from the sun, eternally waiting. Too much has changed for her to do that ever again. Her love is stronger, maybe, than Martha's? I don't know. We hope they won't make the same mistakes as Ethan and Martha, or the Jorgensens, or Scar or Marty's parents.Because of their mixed blood, we can hope that their future will be one of tolerance and respect. But of course we can't see that. It's now THEIR time, not Ethan's and not ours, we have no place in this new land, this new generation, even as we are of it. I can't remember another film in which time flows as purposefully and relentlessly as in THE SEARCHERS.

[pvitari]

Miss Goddess, hi, just saw your post. Yes, that shot is Ben as an extra in Tarzan's Desert Mystery, in which he also doubled for Johnny Weissmuller. He once said his leap off the staircase onto a specific horse in a thundering herd, while wearing only a loincloth and a wig, the most difficult stunt he ever did.

Richard Jensen's book The Nicest Fella reproduces a rare candid from the movie of Ben in the Arab warrior costume you see in the picture above standing next to Johnny Weissmuller in his Tarzan costume.

TCM had its John Wayne marathon yesterday. Wish I had had time to watch. :( :(

[knitwit45]

Jacks, as usual, you completely blow me away with your perception, and the ability to share that view with those of us who only feel it, not able to express it.

Thank you.

[movieman1957]

Beautifully done Wendy. I have always been struck by the contrast of very dark interiors and the bright exteriors that happen early. Lots of doorways.

When I saw it recently on the big screen there were things I was looking for to see how it might play different. Martha's affection for Ethan seemed more obvious. The scene where Clayton (Bond) shows up and there is the ballet of movement through the house. All are doing something. There is no wasted movement just to be moving. Contrast that with the very next scene where Clayton is all alone watching Martha fold Ethan's coat. He understands what he sees but looks away.

I've always liked Laurie. Eternally loyal and deeply devoted despite her near marriage she is frustrated by Marty's lack of grasp of their relationship. When she reads her letter from Marty she is alternately angry and sad. By the end her ordeal is over as much as everyone else's.

They all get a new beginning. Even Ethan will have one. We don't know where but I think he has changed. It won't be with them but maybe with a better outlook. Maybe he'll find the contentment he needs. I'd like to think so anyway.

(You keep pulling these gems out of your self and that's wonderful for the rest of us.)