John Wayne Centenary: The '50s - Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, Hondo, The Searchers and Rio Bravo - Page 5

Fourteen years after the film, Wayne produced a TV series based on the same story with Ralph Taeger taking on the part of Hondo. The series only lasted one season but I’ve always had fond memories of it. Wayne’s Hondo was the first though, and arguably the best.

The Searchers (1956)

The search for a white girl kidnapped by Indians would seem the sort of heroic story perfectly suited to Wayne’s all-American hero persona, yet the character he brings to the screen is the most complex of his career. The Searchers is, for me, the finest film ever made. Why? That’s a hard one to put down in words but I’ll give it a try.

It's a stunningly beautiful film to look at. All of Ford’s westerns are visually breathtaking, even when let down by other elements, but this one captures the untamed beauty of the west better than any other. Its vast open spaces are both a thing of wonder and an alien landscape filled with potential danger. It also has a script that walks the fine line of sentimentality but never strays the wrong side of it. There are comic moments that can turn dark in the blink of an eye (Wayne having a laugh at the newly ‘married’ Jeffrey Hunter’s expense until he realises his ’squaw’ wife may know where Debbie is.)

If there’s one single reason this is my all time favourite film though, it’s down to John Wayne. My Dad was a Duke fanatic, and I’ve been watching Wayne films since I was a little kid. The Alamo used to upset me as a child. No not because of the speeches, but because Wayne ‘died.’ He wasn’t supposed to die, he was indestructible, like Superman. When I first saw The Shootist, after he died, I had a tear in my eye. However it was The Searchers that had the most profound effect on me, not because he died, but because he was so damn mean.

Here was an anti-hero before there were such things. Ethan Edwards is not a good man and Wayne showed a darkness he’d only previously tapped in Red River. He’s a racist, a cold-blooded killer, a man who’s as vicious and savage as any Indian. But for all his brutality Edwards is a “real” character shaped by experience, a man whose hard life has made him a cold, hard man.

Article Author: Ian Woolstencroft

Ian Woolstencroft was brought up on a diet of John Wayne movies and Marvel Comics and still has a passion for both. Now as a blogcritic he finally understands what Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben meant when he said ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ …

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