This Month’s ‘Short Course’ Film: The Searchers
Showing on Tues March 23rd, 2021 at 1.30 pm – Running time 1hr 59mins and in Technicolor
In this revered Western, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas after the Civil War. When members of his brother’s family are killed or abducted by Comanches, he vows to track down his surviving relatives and bring them home. Eventually, Edwards gets word that his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) is alive, and, along with her adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), he embarks on a dangerous mission to find her, journeying deep into Comanche territory.
What the critics say:
The Searchers is the most important western of all time, but more than that, it’s one of the most important movies of all time. The Searchers is Ford’s greatest western, with John Wayne as the relentless adventurer Ethan Edwards. Some fine vignettes of frontier life in the early southwest and a realistic presentation of the difficulties faced by the settlers in carving out a homestead in dangerous Indian country.
Doors open at 1.20 pm. A joining link will be sent on Sunday 21st March 2021
Coming soon: On Tuesday 20th April to complete this three-film series is ‘The Shootist’
‘The Shootist’ is a 1976 American Western film directed by Don Siegel and based on a 1975 novel of the same name. It is notable as John Wayne’s final film role. A subtle, touching valedictory tribute to both Wayne and the Western in general as he was dying of cancer as is the main character in the film.
Melvyn