Searchers

Pros: complex central figure, Ford's direction

Cons: one scene seemed out of place

The Bottom Line: One of the two or three best westerns ever, Ethan is one of the most haunting and complex characters in film history.

Review: In most westerns, men kill each other with guns. The Searchers has a few scenes of gun-play, but the guts of the movie lie in the motivations of the main character, Ethan (John Wayne). What is he searching for and, more importantly why is he...

Pros: A marvelous movie to see

Cons: There are no cons to this one.

Review: The Searchers is a complex look at the real west. Never has John Wayne, and John Ford put so much realistic impact into a western film. The searchers could have been a true story. The depth of a man's character is carried over into Ethan Edwards, a...

Pros: Everything

Cons: None

The Bottom Line: The Best of the West

Review: (A shorter review of this video appears in my "10 Best Westerns" review)

This is the movie for which the Duke should've gotten the Oscar for. Not that Rooster Cogburn isn't a great character, but it's Ethan Edwards that shows that
he...

Pros: scenery, landscape, storyline, actors, picture quality

Cons: not long enough, not developed enough

The Bottom Line: No question that any Western fan or John Wayne fan will wonder how they had never come across this film until now.

Review: A hands down terrific movie from 1956, much more appreciated today than it was in its own time. Firstly, I would highly recommend the restored version of this movie. I dont know what the non-restored version looked like, but I was very surprised to...

Pros: Epic John Ford tale of the West

Cons: Some of the acting is a little stilted

The Bottom Line: for those who desire to see the seminal Western from a master director at the top of his game, devour this film

Review: It is difficult to distil down to one single idea how the story elements in the 1956 film The Searchers work to create such a palpable and at times visceral visual treat. The film is the seminal western. It shows the white man Ethan Edwards as a...

Pros: John Ford, John Wayne, Beautiful locations

Cons: none

Review: In John Ford's The Searchers John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a war veteran who returns home just in time to see his family slaughtered by Comanche Indians. Edwards immediately embarks on a quest to rescue the two remaining family members who have...

Pros: Perhaps John Wayne's best performance ever, beautiful natural backdrops of Monument Valley and Canada

Cons: underrated and under-appreciated

Review: The Searchers is a beautifully-shot, influential film which has resulted in some interesting inspirations, most notably that of Taxi Driver according to director Martin Scorcese and writer Paul Schrader.

Ethan Edwards (John...

Pros: Epic story, John Wayne in his best dramatic performance, great photography and scenery

Cons: Episodic structure requires viewers' concentration. View the restored edition!

The Bottom Line: THE SEARCHERS is, if not John Ford's masterpiece in the Western Genre, certainly one of his most mature explorations the phrase -- The Winning of the West.

Review: John Ford once said, given a choice between facts and myth, he would print the myth.

From Ford's earliest silent films, such as THE IRON HORSE (1924) through his l939 groundbreaking Western STAGECOACH (which made John Wayne a star), the...

Pros: A Truly Great Film.

Cons: None

The Bottom Line: A Great Western Film.

Review: The Searchers

Texas 1868

Ethan Edwards returns to his brothers farm three years after the end of the civil war.

While Ethan and his adoptive nephew Martin Pawley join a company of Texas Rangers to track a Commanche raiding...

Pros: A refreshingly different type of role for John Wayne

Cons: Its a tad too long

The Bottom Line: There is more to the Searchers than just a typical western. It is an interesting and enjoyable change from the typical genre western.

Review: I was first exposed to this film in my freshman year of college. I was taking a history course and my professor has shown us a clip from the movie because apparently it was a good example of a cold war movie. Two years later I finally got to see the...