The Searchers (1956)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: John Ford
Writers: Frank S. Nugent, Alan Le May
Cinematographer: Winton C. Hoch
Composer: Max Steiner
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood, John Qualen, Olive Carey, Henry Brandon, Ken Curtis

Although the action scenes are generally dull, its portrait of obsession not particularly credible, Steiner’s score often inappropriate, and Wayne’s performance as camp ever, this much loved western, chronicling a pair of outsiders’ attempts to track down the Comanche war party that slaughtered most of their family and kidnapped its youngest member, is, thanks mainly to its humour filled quieter moments, a thoroughly entertaining if rather slight film. Iain.Stott