John Wayne

When I was growing up in the 1950s, I felt I needed role models to teach me what it meant to be a man.  I hope I was one for my son, but in my case, I did not have the closest of relationships with my father.  My brothers were still young and involved in their own lives, but provided some guidance.  I looked to others in the outside culture to be such models.  One such area was the world of sports and I had some favorite athletes to look up to, such as Willie Mays and Floyd Patterson.  However, I had limited contact with these men.  I could only occasionally actually see my heroes in action (on television), but not hear their voices nor their opinions.

Movies turned out to be a better venue.  When I saw selected role models, it would be for two hours or so.  And I could both watch their character’s actions and hear them speak their minds.  And if they were popular, I would have more and more opportunites in more and more films.  I had many favorites:  Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, and James Cagney to name some.  But, my number one was and is John Wayne.  Unlike many actors who played many different types of roles, he played about the same character in almost every one of his movies.

Why John Wayne?  First was his size.  He was a big man.  But, his characters didn’t use their size to intimidate or harm those weaker than they.  Because of his size, he was able to overcome the bad guys.  And not only to help himself, but he always used his size and skills to help others less fortunate.    

John Wayne’s characters had a code of behavior.  In his last movie, The Shootist (1976), he enunciated his code:  “I won’t be wronged.  I won’t be insulted.  I won’t be laid a hand on.  I don’t do these things to other people and I require the same from them.”  Not something bad to live by.

Of course, in films there is always a conflict.  Otherwise, there is no story.  And in his movies’s conflicts, there was danger, physical danger.  However, John Wayne’s characters never showed fear, only courage.  Maybe he felt fear, but he never let his fear control his behavior.

And of course, there were the ladies.  He was not only attracted to women, but they were attracted to him as well.  And when he was in a romantic relationship, he knew what to do. 

My favorite John Wayne movie was John Ford’s classic 1956 Western, The Searchers, which used the spectacular Monument Valley for its outdoor locations.  The opening and closing scenes are like bookends.  In the opening, a door opens and his character is seen approaching on horseback from a distance.  In the closing, a door closes with him remaining as an outsider.  What happens in between makes for a wonderful movie.

Despite incredibly receiving no Academy Award nominations when it was first released, The Seachers is now considered to be a great film.   In 1989, The Searchers was deemed culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant by the United States Library of Congress.  In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked The Searchers twelfth on its list of the one hundred greatest American films.  All I know is that, when I saw it in a movie theater as an 11 year-old, I loved it.  I still enjoy watching it again and again, always looking for something I hadn’t noticed before.

John Wayne’s character, Ethan Edwards, arrives at his brother Aaron’s ranch in Texas in 1868.  He has been gone since 1861, the beginning of the Civil War, when he joined the Confederate Army.  Where he had been since the war ended three years earlier is a mystery, but there is some evidence he had fought in Mexico for Emperor Maximilian. 

If you watch Ethan’s body language you should note that, of the five people in his brother’s family (mother, father, two daughters, Lucie and Debby, and a son, Ben), he is definitely most interested in his sister-in-law, Martha.  This interest seems to be reciprocal, as well.  However, there is no dialogue to support this theory, only suggestions.  Such as, what exactly is the reason for Ethan’s visit to his brother’s ranch after seven years?  Aaron asks Ethan, “I saw it in you before the war.  You wanted to clear out.  You stayed beyond any real reason.  Why?”  Ethan, after staring at Martha, changes the subject.  

The following day, a group of Texas Rangers arrive at the Edward’s ranch to organize a posse (which Ethan joins) to look for cattle rustlers who had run off with some prize steers of one of their neighbors.  Turns out, it wasn’t cattle rustlers at all.  It was some Comanches who were trying to draw the men folk away from Ethan’s brother’s ranch for a murder raid.  When Ethan returns, the ranch is on fire and Aaron, Martha, Ben are dead.  The two daughters have been abducted.

It is very telling that the only victim Ethan calls out for is Martha.  His brother and nephew are dead and his two nieces are missing, but he is preoccupied with his sister-in-law.   Strange!  After the dead are buried, he and two young men (Brad, Lucy’s boyfriend, and his brother’s adopted son, Marty) undertake a multi-year search for the two missing girls.  Hence, the title, The Searchers.  Along the way, Lucie is found dead and Brad is killed.  Despite such setbacks, Ethan and Marty continue their unending search for the younger girl, Debbie.

When Debbie was first abducted, she was 8 years-old.  When she is eventually located, but not yet re-captured, she is a teenager (played by Natalie Wood).  She has been raised as a Comanche and is now one of the wives of the Comanche chief, Scar.  Ethan expresses his racism, “She’s been living with a buck.  She’s nothing but a...”  His motivation in finding her has changed from bringing her home to killing her (a white woman living with Indians should be put out of her misery).  This racism is unusual for John Wayne’s movie characters.  In other films, he shows great respect for Indians (see Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)).    

Would it be natural for a man to spend so many years searching for his niece?  Or is she his niece?  Maybe Debbie is his daughter?  She was born before Ethan had left for the war.  And maybe there had been a liaison between Ethan and Martha.  That makes more sense to me.  Looking back at the scene of the raid by the Comanches, Martha was not only murdered, but raped as well.  That may explain why, when Debbie is eventually re-captured, Ethan takes particular pleasure in scalping Scar, who probably raped the woman he had been in love with.  Perhaps the search was also about revenge.

During the climatic scene when she is finally rescued from the Comanches, Debbie is afraid of Ethan, who is to her a menacing figure.  She runs from him.  We, the audience, aren’t sure what he’ll do when he finally has her in his arms.  We shouldn’t have worried.  He says, “Let’s go home, Debbie.”

When Ethan, Debbie, and Marty arrive at the “home” of their neighbors, Debbie and Marty are welcomed inside.  However, as I described above, Ethan remains outside, drifting away, as the door closes ending the movie.  The audience hears a somber tune which can describe Ethan’s plight: “A man will search his heart and soul, go searching way out there.  His peace of mind, he knows he’ll find, but where Oh, Lord, Lord where?  Ride away, ride away, ride away.”