Two Words, One Answer.
Searchers
 The Searchers (Ultimate Collector's Edition) $39.98 This is the best John Wayne John Ford! If I had a son I would have named him Ethan Edwards. Each time I watch this classic I see more definition in the characters...their prejudices, their motivations are fascinating. The movie was casted perfect without exception. The Blu-ray version is an absolute must, it makes you feel like you could just walk into the screen. I envy people who have never experienced this movie.  John Wayne-John Ford Film Collection (The Searchers Ultimate Edition / Stagecoach Two-Disc Special Edition / Fort Apache / She Wore a Yellow Ribbon / The Long Voyage Home / They Were Expendable / 3 Godfathers / The Wings of Eagles) $79.98 I was very excited to purchase this box set for my dad who's a huge John Wayne fan. Unfortunately, all the movies were black and while, they were the really old John Wayne stuff! So if you want something in color or recent John Wayne stuff, this is not for you.  The Searchers (Leisure Western) $6.99 This review does not contain spoilers. Read it without fear. I rarely read fiction, but I've started reading novels whose movie adaptations I didn't like (or had serious reservations about), if for no other reason than to be able to more-intelligently discuss the films. These have included "Midnight Cowboy", "A Clockwork Orange", "No Country for Old Men", and "The Man Who Fell to Earth". In every case (duh... surprise), the novel was superior to the film. This isn't always the case. Films are on rare occasions better than their sources ("Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and the Robert Newton "Treasure Island" come to mind), but it's difficult to convert the subtlety of written language to visual form. Not to mention the practical limitations imposed by a finite budget and a tight shooting schedule. The author, Alan Le May, was also a screenwriter, and "The Searchers" reads as if he had a film in mind. It opens cinematically, with Henry Edwards worried that Something Terrible is about to happen, likely an Indian attack, which immediately involves the reader. The film starts slowly, focusing on Ethan Edwards' return and his relationship with the rest of his family. Le May had previously penned a John Wayne film, "Reap the Wild Wind", and it's likely he had Wayne in mind for Amos Edwards. (In the novel, Ethan is the name of Martin Pauley's biological father.) Not only does Amos talk like Wayne (which is disconcerting if you've seen the film, because you can't get it out of your mind's ear), but the Indians call him "Bull Shoulders". In the novel, Martin Pauley is the principal character (not Amos Edwards), and we see almost everything through his eyes. Though 18, he is more mature than one might expect, and he grows throughout the book, unlike Jeffrey Hunter's inexperienced and not-very-ballsy Martin. Nor is the novel as dark as you might expect. There are bits of humor throughout (including an observation about the influence of sex on the stiffness of one's toenails), with one laugh-out-loud gag near the end. As others have pointed out, the middle section drags, simply because it's hard to write interestingly about two men wandering around while /not/ reaching their goal. It picks up in the last 50 pages, when Amos and Martin finally locate Scar and Debbie. The ending is surprisingly sentimental for what is a rather brutal novel, and quite /unlike/ the film. And unlike the film, it pretty much makes sense. Le May was a fine writer, and "The Searchers" is much closer to literature than pulp fiction. What really brings the story to life is the detail Le May works in. We know what people eat and drink, how they dress, what trackers look for, how Indians smell, how homes and businesses were furnished, and so on. John Ford's film has many problems, starting with his insistence on filming at Monument Valley, a terrible place for anyone to take up ranching. (The Blu-ray disk is worth owning, simply to see Monument Valley in HD Technicolor VistaVision.) In the novel, the Edwardses and their neighbors live on the prairie, where's there's plenty of grass to nourish their cattle. And though times have been mostly tough, things are turning around, and the family is wealthy. The main problem, though, is Ford's repurposing of the story. Though the film and novel follow the same arc -- the kidnapping of Deborah Edwards and her eventual recovery -- the focus is shifted toward Amos (now Ethan) Edwards. And as in the novel, Ethan hates the "Commanch" and wants Debbie dead, because she's become nothing more than an Indian whore. Ford, a Liberal who had addressed racism in previous films, likely decided that "The Searchers" should be an indictment of Americans' attitudes towards Indians, and the story is almost completely skewed in that direction. Ford apparently had no trust in John Wayne's acting ability, so we see right from the start what sort of person Ethan Edwards is -- a Southern soldier and sympathizer who hates just about anyone who isn't white. (Martin Pauley becomes one-eighth Indian to give Ethan someone else to dislike.) In the novel, Martin only gradually becomes aware of Amos's true intentions. Ford also adds useless things not in the novel, such as unnecessary roles for his little family of actors. (Ward Bond is particularly loud and irritating.) Then there's Ford's penchant for broad, sometimes physical humor that detracts from the story. Combining this with Edwards' sudden -- and totally unmotivated -- change of heart at the end, is it not understandable why some viewers feel that "The Searchers" isn't a particularly good film, and hardly the Supreme Masterpiece so many people make it out to be? This isn't to say that Ford's gross alteration of the novel couldn't have been made to work. It's rather that it /doesn't/ work. "The Searchers" -- as Le May wrote it -- would make an excellent two-night TV movie. I wonder what Simon Wincer is doing these days... PS: 1954 was a great year for Western novels. Look for Frederick Manfred's "Lord Grizzly", a partly fictional bio-novel about Hugh Glass. |
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