Of course not. That’s the point. The door closes at the end and he is alone.
Which is why it was so important that John Wayne play the part. John Wayne (and most Westerns up to that point) were morally unambiguous. It was quite shocking for many in 1956 to see a Western hero (particularly John Wayne) and the history of Western expansion portrayed as something that was so deeply flawed. By the end of the 1960s that was the norm.
I feel the same about Casablanca. Some old movies hold up well, others don’t.
Good point. That must be why ''Soldier Blue" wasn’t made until 1970.
But, the good indian was not a completely foreign concept. Tonto saved the Lone Ranger in order to start the legend.
Gunga Din was written in 1890, and featured another “good Indian” of sorts. I think it inspired a number of the “good person from a backwards culture” tropes from fiction for many years afterward.
He’s in shock and horrified because he just saw and buried a raped, naked and probably mutilated Lucy. He’s not quite aware of what he’s doing.
I recently read something interesting about the movie. Ford provided a backstory to his actors, so they’d have something to base their characters’ reactions on. The backstory is that years in the past, Ethan had been having an affair with his sister-in-law behind his brother’s back. He went away in order to end the affair. Lucy is probably his daughter, and this explains why he gives her a gift when he sees her for the first time, and his reaction to finding her murdered corpse. Also, when he first arrives at his brother’s house in the beginning, it explains why everyone is reacting to everyone else in the cabin the way they do. Even Ward Bond studiously looks the other way from Ethan’s sister-in-law when she’s secretly caressing Ethan’s jacket in another room.
I mean, Dr. Strangelove isn’t that different a time than The Searchers and look how modern Dr. Strangelove seems comparitively.
Chronologically, that’s like comparing “Heartbreak Hotel” to “Hard Days Night”. Popular art forms changed radically between 1956 and 1964.
Thanks for the education, veryfrank. I wouldn’t say I gravitate towards the lowbrow, but nor do I prefer entertainment I need to study up on to appreciate.
I think this might fit in that category of movies that are significant because of the time they were made - but that do no hold up as well on current viewing. It is curious how some movies hold up better than others. Someone mentioned Casablanca. The Wizard of Oz, and To Kill a Mockingbird would be other examples. This one, I don’t see it.
So he was in shock after finding the one dead body - but nowhere near as upset when he found the whole family dead earlier on - including the SIL he may have been bonking. Do people generally think JW was a good actor, or that he acted well in this film? Is there any film JW was in in which you just saw the character he was portraying - as opposed to JW playing a character?
Well, John Wayne won an Academy award for best actor for ‘True Grit’, and was nominated for best actor for ‘The Sands of Iwo Jima’.
It was hard to see him as anything other than John Wayne because the actor was probably the most famous actor of his age. It’s hard to get across how big Wayne was, but back in the day he really was considered one of the great actors.
I think of him a bit like Shatner - a guy larger-than-life who got stereotyped by his mannerisms and occasional over-acting, but who had serious chops as an actor that got overlooked.
I’m a Western and John Wayne fan but The Searchers to me was just okay, the beginning and end are great but all that stuff in the middle… In terms of favorite John Wayne Westerns, you really can’t go wrong with Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, it’s probably my favorite Western. Rip Bravo, True Grit and The Cowboys are also ones I watch all the time.
And They Were Expendable by John Ford with John Wayne is in my mind the most underrated war film ever.
I dunno. Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart were pretty popular, and I can still accept them in character better than the Duke.
He focused strongly on maintaining his image personally as well as the image of the characters he played. His acting skills were rather limited, his role as Genghis Khan in the Conqueror was laughable. He was an early action hero concentrated in westerns and using that same style in some non-westerns successfully. He had a lot of movie experience behind him by the time he was in Stagecoach, the start of the more notable films that he would appear in with better directors. He did quite well with that, becoming an icon and guaranteed money maker. What may have demonstrated his ability to act the best was Rooster Cogburn where he had to maintain his award winning character from True Grit while working with Katherine Hepburn considered one among the very best film actresses of all time. That was the movie he made remembered more for the performances from duet of legends than any other aspect.
There is a hell of a history behind the critical assessment of this film.
When it came out, absolutely no one thought it was some all time classic. It was well regarded but didn’t get the sort of devoted “this is a masterpiece” praise it got later. It was several years later that Jean-Luc Godard, in what was a surprise to basically anyone, declared it a masterwork.
After that, the critic train got rolling.
IMHO, it’s just not a masterpiece. It’s a good movie, but has not aged well the way truly great movies age well and has a lot of flaws. The idea that it’s some work of deep subversion just isn’t well supported by what’s on the screen and would be bizarrely inconsistent with the opinions of either John Ford or John Wayne.
Good, but overrated, IMHO.
Jimmy Stewart in particular had mannerisms and a voice that are easy to imitate/parody, much like John Wayne. Yet I agree, he played characters rather than just Jimmy Stewart with a different name.
Another one of my favorites. The acting can also be see as stiff by the usual John Ford Players. To fully appreciate it you also have to look at the context. It was released a few months after the war when no one wanted to see a movie about a defeat. It was based on the real war hero John Bulkeley (Robert Montgomery’s character). A few years earlier John Ford was wounded on Midway and was in Normandy. Robert Montgomery was an actual PT boat commander in combat. Montgomery directed much of the boat scenes because Ford broke his leg during filming. I can’t imagine how it felt acting out what he had to do in real life a few years before.
Minnesota was a lot drier back then.
He was also excellent in “The Shootist,” his last film. A good director could get a terrific performance out of him.
It’s been almost 20 years since I have seen it but yeah it seemed wildly overrated to me. Ultimately I didn’t find the Wayne character’s arc particularly interesting either in performance or writing.
The Ford films I like are My Darling Clementine, Grapes of Wrath and Stagecoach though it’s been a long time since I have seen any of them too.