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Their peace is soon broken, by the arrival of Captain Reverend Clayton (Ward Bond) with news of rustling from a nearby farm. Gathering a small posse of Rangers, Clayton enlists Ethan and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter) as volunteers. Martin was found abandoned as an infant by Ethan, only now his eighth of Cherokee blood sours Ethan's actions towards him. Still, the group ride off with Lucy's boyfriend Brad Jorgensen (Harry Carey Jr.) and slightly mad Indian scout Mose Harper (Hank Worden). Picking up the trail, they easily follow it until the find the cattle -- all slaughtered, for no obvious reason, by Comanche. Grasping the implications (that this was all a ruse to draw the men from the farms), the posse hurriedly make tracks to return.
Back at the Edwards' farm, an uneasy dusk hush has descended. Uncomfortably aware of the danger, Aaron packs Debbie off to hide among the gravestones, while the family prepare to defend their home. Just as Debbie settles, the shadow of Comanche chief Scar (Henry Brandon) falls across her. The next morning Ethan arrives back with Mose, horrified to discover the farm a smoldering ruin. Aaron, Martha and Ben have all been murdered and mutilated, a horror Ethan intends to keep from the devastated Martin. Since the two girls have obviously been kidnapped by the Indian raiding party, a squad is formed to bring them back. Unbeknown to anyone, this is merely the start of a years-long saga for Ethan and Martin, a journey which will take them to what seems like the ends of the Earth.
Dealing with elemental themes and characters familiar from a hundred different Westerns, The Searchers has been imbued with a unique quality by director John Ford. Above any similar film, the gradual transformation of a man from remoteness to humanity (while remaining essentially unchanged) is handled with sensitivity and power. Ethan is a rugged product of the desert, supremely confident in his own abilities and dismissive of the opinions of others. Without an emotional outlet, Ethan appears to exist apart from other folks, when he is in fact capable of extremely deep and long-lasting feelings. Thus he is spurred to relentlessly track down Debbie, never pausing and never quitting (particularly since Aaron suggested that he wanted to give up on their harsh ranching existence, before the war). However, as his love is overshadowed by a homicidal rage, Martin is rightly fearful for just what'll happen when they find Debbie.
Placed within a magnificent storyline, detailed and complex, the characters fit perfectly within the context of their environment. Scraping a living within the hellish scrub-land, the Edwards and Jorgensen families are tight-knit and self-reliant. Years of hardship have toughened them up, without introducing inflexibility and bitterness; the chance for a dash of conviviality is eagerly grasped, when presented. The exception is Ethan, as scarred and unforgiving as the rocky towers of the plain, he is admired even as his type become gradually out-of-date. Wayne plays his role beautifully and convincingly, investing his words with a sour passion, more at ease with the desert landscape than flesh and bone. All of the characters feel right, even loopy Moses, but Ethan is central to the saga that is The Searchers.
The landscape of Monument Valley (a favourite for John Ford) is brutally powerful, dwarfing the insignificant humanity which scratches life from its floor. Ford makes superb use of the vistas available but, more than this, his control over visual structure is absolute at every level. The final framing of Ethan within a doorway, representing so much about his past and future, is merely a single example. In tandem with this photography, the rich colouration of the film stock imparts a wonderful sense of depth, drawing out incredibly subtle shades from within the rusty-iron hued rubble. Externally The Searchers is a fictional piece, yet the lives which were ploughed into the soil of America (to make it what it is today) have never seemed so close. These determined settlers carried a dream for the future, a hope that is both relevant and needed today.
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