YMMV / The Searchers

Due to shared titles, this page has been split into folders.

The John Wayne western movie

• Adaptation Displacement: There was a novel? In fact, the novel has stayed in print because of the reputation of the film.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: T'sala-ta-komal-ta-name/"Look" (Martin's homely Comanche trophy wife) is cringe-inducing in her Modern Minstrelsy....but you will feel bad when you see her corpse after she's massacred during a cavalry raid.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Did Look go to the Comanche camp to warn Scar of Ethan's approach, or did she try to get Debbie for Martin as a sign of her loyalty to him? Martin himself remarks that he's not entirely sure.
• Award Snub: Received no nominations at the Oscars. Rather ironic, considering how the film is now viewed as a masterpiece by John Ford, who was otherwise the most rewarded director in the Oscar's history. Of course this was a time when westerns were generally regarded as disposable entertainment, and none of Ford's westerns won him an Oscar.
• Awesome Music:
  • This was Max Steiner's only score for a John Ford western, and his final collaboration with Ford overall, and he makes the most of it with a sweeping score that fits the film's epic scope to a T.
  • Also the song "The Searchers," by the Sons of the Pioneers (it starts at 0:19).
• Broken Base: The wedding scene is controversial. Is it pointless Padding mainly meant to give Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles and Ken Curtis something to do in the film? Or is it an effective Breather Episode that gives the audience some much-needed comic relief before the intense final act of the story?
• Draco in Leather Pants: Henry Brandon's handsome features and brooding performance as Scar has won him a lot of fans. They also note that the film presents Scar as Ethan's doppelganger and that the Comanches have justifiable Freudian Excuse for attacking settlers what with the whole encroachment on the land, racism and passive genocide.
• Epileptic Trees: A very popular fan theory posits that Debbie is not actually Ethan's niece, but his daughter, born out of an affair with Martha. Not only does the film seem to suggest some kind of deeper relationship early on between Ethan and his brother's wife, but Debbie's age is given specifically as eight, exactly the same amount of time Ethan had been gone for.
• Evil Is Cool: The Comanches in the film (as played by the Navajo) and Scar are pretty awesome and cool foes. John Milius admitted on seeing the film that he totally rooted for the Comanches, saying they were badass awesome warriors ("These are not jackals but Lions!"). He also admits "I wanted to be Scar".
• Fair for Its Day: While the racism is meant to make the viewer uncomfortable, modern viewers are still going to be put off far more than the 1950s audience.
• Genre Turning Point: It's a Western about racism; so what's the big deal? Well, the "big deal" is that it was the Trope Breaker for the older, shiny-white-good-guys version of The Western, and was so powerful that virtually every Western, and a huge number of films in general that followed, felt compelled either try to respond to it in some way to avoid being tacky, or to at least homage and acknowledge it. Also, it must be noted that in the classic era, there were very few movies that actually deal with settler/native relations with the same kind of honesty and lack of Black-and-White Morality, as noted by author Sherman Alexie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • With Buddy Holly borrowing Ethan's Catchphrase for his Signature Song, this exchange feels like the film is actually referencing the song.
    Martin Pawley: I hope you die!
    Ethan Edwards: That'll be the day.
  • Charlie McCorry's famous Annoying Laugh, "HAW-HAW-HAW," is identical to the recurring Evil Laugh used in Chick Tracts. Reportedly, Jack Chick was, despite his strident fundamentalist Christianity, a major movie buff, so it may have actually been a Shout-Out.
  • The main villain being nicknamed as Scar... sounds familiar?
• Hype Backlash: Inevitable due to being held up as the greatest western ever.
• Memetic Mutation: The scene where the American troop walks around the canyon surround by the Comanches.
• Moral Event Horizon: Ethan attempts to cross it when he almost kills his niece for marrying a Comanche; he doesn't follow through when he's hit with an arrow.
• Narm: Oh, Lord. Let us count the ways....
  • The atrocious way Lucy Edwards sets her jaw before screaming bloody murder when she realizes that Comanches are approaching the homestead (when a simple Oh, Crap! expression would have been much more effective).
    • The vast majority of the actors, in fact, easily come across as Chewing the Scenery and at times shouting out lines. It kinda says something that John Wayne is the most subtle of the cast.
  • The first time we see Henry Brandon as Scar. He is obviously wearing make-up.
  • The actor playing the Indian corpse early on picked a quite unfortunate moment to take a deep breath.
• Rooting for the Empire: You'd been forgiven for cheering for the Chief Scar and the Native Americans, especially after hearing that Scar also had a living family who was killed by an opposing race and recalling that our "hero" is no better than Scar.
• Special Effects Failure: A bunch, but most prominently, the "dead" Comanches who are clearly breathing.
• Values Dissonance: While the film was Fair for Its Day in its progressive attitudes toward racism, it's still a Western made in 1956, so there are a few aspects that modern audiences would find "problematic."
  • The Accidental Marriage sub-plot would be considered in bad taste today. The Comanche sell a plump woman of their tribe to Martin for a hat, and she's enthusiastic to be bought by a strange (though handsome), itinerant white man who doesn't speak her language and for whom she's an Abhorrent Admirer. The whole thing is Played for Laughs, basically being a prank Ethan pulls on naive Martin by not clueing him in to what was happening in the negotiation, and with her as a Butt-Monkey who even gets kicked down a hill when she tries to lay beside her new husband. That said, her obvious fear when the subject of Scar is brought up and her ultimate fate make her a sympathetic figure.
  • Mose acts out a few very stereotypical "hooting Indian" imitations that are played for lighthearted comedy but come across today like a Dead Horse Trope.
• Vindicated by History: The film was a box-office hit in its day but not regarded as anything more than a typical John Wayne potboiler, at least in America (the French, especially Jean-Luc Godard, really liked it). Critics generally felt Ford was wasting his time doing Westerns. One particularly clueless reviewer dismissed The Searchers as being "for children". Even Ford fans like Lindsay Anderson were skeptical about it. It wasn't until the rise of the New Hollywood that its reputation grew, starting with a scene in Martin Scorsese's 1967 film Who's That Knocking at My Door where the lead character (played by Harvey Keitel) enthuses about it. Paul Schrader, John Milius and George Lucas also cited it as an important film that had great influence on their work.
• The Woobie: Martin Pawley. He's mocked by the film's hero for being part Indian, rarely gets any respect, got used as hair for an Indian trap, he rarely gets any time with his girlfriend, she found her own love interest while he was away, and his sister nearly got killed by Ethan multiple times. Though he can also qualify as an Iron Woobie depending on your views.

The British 1960s band

• Poor Man's Substitute: The band were often accused of being copies of The Beatles, although, due to the large amount of British boy bands that were part of the British Invasion, every band that was not The Beatles were accused of trying to be The Beatles.

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