"That'll be the day!"
---Ethan Edwards
Most people know John Wayne as the major star of westerns. Some people know that director John Ford was known for directing westerns. And some even know that John Wayne starred in many of the westerns John Ford directed. What people may not know is that, although they made numerous films together, The Searchers is arguably their finest work together due to the film's controversial and uncharacteristic portrayal of John Wayne as an unsympathetic character who would kill his own flesh and blood because of his beliefs. The Searchers story revolves around the search for the kidnapped niece of Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) after a tribe of Comanche Indians attacks and murders his brother, his brother's wife, and two of their children. The only survivor of this massacre is Ethan's nine-year-old niece Debbie (Natalie Wood), and the rush is on to save her before she becomes a young woman and is taken as the wife of Comanche chief Scar (Henry Brandon). What is disturbing about Ethan's character is that he will forsake his niece if he finds that she has become brainwashed by the Comanche and has had her purity taken away by Scar. To Ethan, she is as good as dead to him once this happens.
Ethan's feelings are not shared by his only fellow searcher, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), a young man who was taken in as a baby and raised by Debbie's family when his family was murdered by the Comanche. Martin believes that they must rescue Debbie no matter what because she is family, even if she is not his actual blood family. Like Ethan, Martin's girlfriend Laurie (Vera Miles) thinks that the search for Debbie is useless if she has been ruined by the Comanche. The only love story in this movie is between Laurie and Martin, though he does not realize how much he loves her until she is about to marry postal carrier Charlie McCorry (Ken Curtis). Laurie, on the other hand, has loved Martin since she was three years old and is hurt that he does not openly acknowledge his love for her, until he has to engage in a fistfight with Charlie for Laurie's love (this she enjoys watching). This love story is mostly comedic and provides light-heartedness to the otherwise dramatic and draining search for the missing Debbie.
The real tear-jerker does not happen until the end when Ethan realizes what Martin has been telling him all along: Debbie is family no matter what. This realization is what makes this film memorable and one of the best westerns ever made. Family is important no matter what its members go through. We cannot turn our backs on someone in our family just because they are suffering or are leading lives that we do not approve of. It is our duty to love them no matter what and to support them if they are dealing with difficulties we cannot understand. That is what The Searchers is really all about.
FUN FACT: John Wayne's son Patrick has a small role in the film as a young soldier, and Natalie Wood's real-life sister Lana plays the younger version of her Debbie character!
FAVORITE QUOTE: "What do you want me to do? Draw you a picture? Spell it out? Don't ever ask me! Long as you live, don't ever ask me more."
---Ethan Edwards, The Searchers
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