The Searchers (1956)

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119 Min – PG – view video trailer

Director: John Ford
Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood

Genres: Adventure, Western

IMDB 8.1 / Amazon 4.5 / MRQE 89 / Decent Films A

Oscars: none

Ranked #15 Greatest Movies Through 1960, included in 26 of 41 lists of best movies, a Zagat Top Movie

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.  IMDB 8.1 rating from over 38,327 users

A favorite film of some of the world’s greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, John Ford’s The Searchers has earned its place in the legacy of great American films for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most notably, it’s the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western–the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of the West. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 355 users

The reputation of John Ford’s The Searchers as a classic but troubling Western in which John Wayne plays an Indian-hating racist is so widely accepted that it’s a bit of a surprise to discover that the film, and the character, are in fact more complex than the reputation suggests. A tense, unsettling tale of obsession and vengeance, The Searchers tells the story of Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards’s relentless pursuit of a Comanche band led by the war chief Scar (Henry Brandon), who has led a murderous raid on a settler household and kidnapped his young niece Debbie. Accompanying Ethan is the girl’s adopted brother Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), who hopes to rescue his sister, and, as years go by, begins to fear that Ethan would rather see the girl dead than living as a Comanche. Read full Decent Films review (rated A, Superior artistic-entertainment for Teens & Up)

MRQE 89% from over 63 reviews

Madison Public Library

High Noon (1952)

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85 min – view video trailer

Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell

Genres: Drama, Western

IMDB 8.2 / Amazon 4.5 / MRQE 92% / Decent Films A

Oscars: nominated for 7, won 4: Best Actor (Gary Cooper), Song (Dimitri Tiomkin, Ned Washington), Music (Dimitri Tiomkin), Film Editing (Elmo Williams, Harry Gerstad) / nominated: Best Picture, Director (Fred Zinnemann), Writing/Screenplay (Carl Foreman)

Ranked #47 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

A marshall, personally compelled to face a returning deadly enemy, finds that his own town refuses to help him. IMDB rating: 8.2 from over 45,458 users

Innovative for its time, the suspenseful story unfolds in approximate real time (from 10:40 a.m. to high noon in an 84-minute film), and many interpreted Foreman’s drama as an allegorical reflection of apathy and passive acceptance of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist campaign. Political underpinnings aside, this remains a milestone of its genre (often referred to as the first “adult” Western), and Cooper is flawless in his Oscar-winning role. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 219 users

A mounting sense of dread and inevitability hangs over Fred Zinnemann’s grim, downbeat Western classic High Noon, a black-and-white anti-spectacle about an aging lawman who receives a series of nasty shocks on the day he tries to hang up his gunbelt and begin a new life. Read full Decent Films review: rated A, Superb artistic-entertainment for Teens & Up

MRQE – over 72 reviews linked with a score of 92

Oscars won (4 of 7): Best Actor (Gary Cooper), Song (Dimitri Tiomkin, Ned Washington), Music (Dimitri Tiomkin), Film Editing (Elmo Williams, Harry Gerstad) / nominated: Best Picture, Director (Fred Zinnemann), Writing/Screenplay (Carl Foreman)

Madison Public Library