For The Searchers, director John Ford made Monument Valley an awesome canvas for his drama. The first shot of the movie takes us through a door from darkness of a cabin into the stark sunlit desert; the final shot closes a door on both the epic scenery and the epic, as Wayne walks off into the distance. Ford takes us into caves, down the sides of steep dunes, and up on mesas. In one striking scene, a line of white horsemen become aware they're being shadowed by a line of Comanche warriors on the ridge in the distance.
Being a favorite of my friend Susan, The Searchers gives me a personal connection to the location. I've watched it now, and can see much to appreciate. Both John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards, a confederate veteran just home from the war, and Henry Brandon's character Chief Cicatriz (or "Scar"), are both on missions of revenge. The emotional kick in the gut from the senseless massacre of an Anglo family early in the story -- only the little daughter Debbie is taken prisoner -- is balanced by Union soldiers' senseless slaughter of Comanche women and children. We've seen one of the Comanche victims before, a good-natured woman who mistakenly understood that she had been made the wife of young Martin, Ethan's adoptive nephew. That's been played for laughs, but when they discover her slaughtered, Ethan covers her face gently and Martin sheds tears.
Edwards has authority, wit, and undeniable charisma; but Martin Pawley, played by Jeffrey Hunter, has all of my sympathy. Throughout the movie, Ethan treats Martin badly for no good reason. Critic Roger Ebert draws attention to Ethan's contempt for his nephew as a "half-breed" who is "one-eighth Comanche." It took me until the middle of the movie -- because I didn't believe what I was hearing -- to realize that the two men have opposing objectives: Martin wants to rescue his adopted sister Debbie, while Ethan plans to execute her for honor's sake. White girls taken back from Comanches are "no longer white," Ethan says. He presumes that she's one of Cicatriz's concubines. None of that matters to Martin, who faces down his uncle's loaded gun, a posse of rangers, and Cicatriz himself to bring his sister back home.
That Martin also plays a juvenile fool in a romantic comedy subplot unfortunately undercuts the gravitas of his performance. So in one scene, he's bravely jumping in front of a gun to protect his sister; minutes later, he's biting the leg of a redneck guitarist to laughs and catcalls. It's pretty hard to reconcile the two strains of the movie.
I'd rather remember the movie for its dramatic main plot and, of course, the beauty of Monument Valley.
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