The Searchers

[Judge Roy Bean]

Ken Curtis was great in all his film & tv work,but I heard he got a wee bit of help in his first Ford film being John Ford's son-inlaw ?
And the rest is history.

[Leo Tanner]

This is gonna sound like a load of road apples, but I swear it's all true.

My Pa went to highschool (Hollywood High) and played on the ball team with one of the Duke's boys.  They got to be compadres and Pa spent a lot of time at the house.  All the players used to laugh at all the people who show up for the Friday night games expectin Mr. Wayne to stroll into the stands and take a seat.
     Pa did get to meet him at the house and says he was a typical father--after a while it felt no differnt then being at any of his other pal's homes.  I'm gonna call Pa and verify which son it was, he hasn't told that story in years.


Leo

[Stophel]

I really like this movie.  It's one of the few movies that I would really like to see on the big screen.  I think it would be glorious.

[Advertising]

[Uncle Eph]

to me the scene where Martha is clutching Ethan's coat while Ward Bond is standing in the backround is one of the greatest scenes ever filmed, in just a few frames without a word being said we learn so much about the backround of these people and why no matter what happens in the future all are doomed.

[Early Graves]

Here's a thought.Could it be,that Debbie is actually Ethan's daughter(the result of a pre-war affair between Ethan &Martha)?It would explain a few things.

[Cyrille]

#1 Let us not put modern day moraies on a "period piece" even to suggest such a liaison between Ethan and Martha (who is his brother's wife) ever happened is IMO "unsavory" to say the least!

[The Elderly Kid]

Uncle Eph has it right. Way back in the early 70s I was living in Scotland and there was a revival of "the Searchers" going on. One of the British critics singled out that particular scene as possibly the best, most perfectly structured scene in American cinema, though wordless:
WARD BOND sips coffee, glances up, sees:
MARTHA thinking nobody is looking, caresses Ethan's coat.
WARD BOND still sipping his coffee, stares straight ahead.
The Brit critic said that, seeing that scene, you know that there is no way on God's Earth that Bond's character will ever speak a word about what he has just seen. He said that it spoke volumes about American frontier ethics. Sometimes it takes a furriner to see what is berst in us.

[Black Powder]

I gotta rent this, own it, tape it, do something.  Time for a re-examination.  Always liked it, admired it.  But it's just been a while, I guess.

Thanks for starting this thread.  I've forgotten more than I realized.

BP

[Buck Stinson]

In my opinion, "The Searchers" is one of the best westerns ever made.  It is certainly on my top ten list and I have a long list of movies and western stars that I consider exceptional.  I agree with several who have replied to this post, when it was said that a lot of folks watch movies for the gun play and action.  There's no doubt that these ingredients are important but for me, if the movie doesn't tell a believable story, I lose interest and probably won't watch it again.    Movies like Union Pacific with Joel McCrea, Stagecoach with John Wayne, Comanche Station with Randoph Scott and Shane with Alan Ladd are just a small number of what I consider the best story telling westerns.  If you watch these movies enough times, you can crawl inside them and feel what the characters are feeling.  Now that's a movie.

Adios,
Buck

[Cyrille]

#1 Let us not put modern day moraies on a "period piece" even to suggest such a liaison between Ethan and Martha (who is his brother's wife) ever happened is IMO "unsavory" to say the least!

When I wrote the above, I did not mean to suggest that there was nothing between Ethan and Martha before the war, it is very possible that they may have been courting;  what I attempted to get across was that while it was possible; it was most unlikely that Martha or even Ethan given the morals of the time, would have ever considered much less actually have sex outside of wedlock! That at least is my opinion.