Now for the rest of the list.
5. Stagecoach is the movie that set the archetypes for almost all subsequent westerns. The whore with the heart of gold. The greedy banker. The southern gentleman fallen on hard times who lives as a gambler and gunman but retains his courtly ways. The drunken doctor who is a truth teller but still a drunk. And most important of all is the Anti-hero. A bad man who does good. A killer who is in the right and does what he has to do. The Ringo Kid as played by John Wayne is the model for hundreds of movies and TV shows and is the archetype of the western hero. In this movie, the shots and the action and the characters set the standard for western movies.
4. Red River is the movie that really made John Wayne a star. His portrayal of Dunson is one of his top three performances and his chemistry with Montgomery Clift is amazing. You could believe that they were father and son. Adopted son but son all the same. This set the tone for all the trail drive movies to follow. The funny part about the movie is that most people assume because it was a Wayne movie that John Ford directed it. The real Director Howard Hawks loved to bust on Ford that he made Wayne a star. Ford would pour his drink over the heads of fans who told them how much they loved Red River. He might have been pissed, but Red River and Stagecoach were the originals that thousands of hacks have copied from for decades.
3. Rio Grande is my sentimental favorite. A great love story with Wayne and Maureen O’hara, the themes of conflict between duty and family is always a favorite. The comic scenes with Victor Mclaglen were stellar as always and the movie could be seen as a metaphor for the war against terror. General Sheridan comes down and tells Colonel York that he has to break the law by crossing into Mexico to stop the attacks by the Apaches. The government might have to disown him but he still has to do the job. It’s fun and lighthearted in an engaging way and better than 90% of the crap we get to watch today.
2. The Magnificent Seven is one of the best action westerns ever made. I much prefer it to the Wild Bunch as it is more stylized and has such a great cast. I mean James Coburn and Charles Bronsen as supporting players. Eli Wallach plays the best “bad tooth” Mexican bandito this side of the Treasure of Sierra Madre. It was a copy of Seven Samurai which Kurasowa has often said was heavily influenced by John Ford’s westerns. So it was a western influenced by an eastern which was influenced by a western. Yul Brenner gave such an iconic performance that he lived off it for years as witness the comic turn it took in Westworld. This is just great popcorn entertainment.
1. The only real agreement I have with AFI is that The Searchers is the best western ever made. Wayne was great as the uncle searching for his niece so that he could kill her because she was ruined by being raped by Scar the Comanche chief. It included most of Fords stock company in their usual roles but they seem sharper and more in tune. This movie has been ripped off in so many ways and so many times that it is impossible to list them all. The themes of lost love and redemption are universal and it is above all great entertainment.
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16 comments:
Except for The Searchers I don't think I've seen these. Well, I'm pretty sure I've seen Stagecoach--or something like it.....
I got issues with The Searchers too. I think it's racist.
One quibble Trooper (well, maybe 2); where are my 2 favorite Wayne westerns: The Shootist, and Big Jake?
Both do exactly what a movie should, as far as I'm concerned, and that is tell a good story convincingly, and so it with a minimum of preaching.
I could have done the whole list of ten and not left The Duke (another great Hawks western- The War Wagon, and where is Hondo?
I was also pleasantly suprised to see 3 Wayne movies in the top ten; after starting with Cat Ballou (and why is this movie left off your Commie Babes list?) I figured another industry snubbing was in the works.
Blake, of course the Searchers is racist, that's the whole point of the movie. John Wayne comes home from the war to the woman he always loved who married his brother. He comes home to the family he never had and wished he did. Then the other, in this case the Comanche comes in and slaughters his family and takes his young niece captive. In this movie the Duke is a hammer and he sees every problem as a nail. He isn't someone who is unfamilar with the Indians. He knows them and he hates them. He has been battling them his whole life. So the kidnapping and sexual subugation of his innocent niece is the worst thing he could ever think of in his life. He is bound and determine to get her back. He feels she is better off dead than living as an Indian. And he knows how to hate. So they are off on their quest year after year. As long as "The turning of the earth." But when he finally "rescues" Debbie, a funny thing happens. He can't kill her. He finds his humanity. He finds redemption. He can "forgive" his niece. He can "forgive" himself.
It's the struggle of a very strong man with his hate and racism and his choice to be a better man. That's what makes it a classic.
Troop--I get that the Duke's character was supposed to be racist, and I agree that's very powerful.
The problem I have with it is that it seemed like John Ford was racist.
I mean, it's one thing to have Ethan think things about the Indians, and it's another to show them as true. The whole "fate worse than death"--really, back then, in those places, women captured by Indians weren't really any worse off than they had been before. And turned into mute animals?
Generally, I don't think that the old westerns were racist, even though they showed racism, and didn't adopt today's "Dances With Wolves"-style Indian good/White Man bad mentality.
And maybe I'm just wrong, historically, and Ford's right. It just doesn't fit with what I know.
Rent Cheyenne Autumn to see Ford's real attitude towards the Indians. He adopted the attitude of the army, sorrow for the destruction, anger at the waste and courrption of the Interior Department, but duty and orders forced them to carry out what was basiclly a pogrom. A higher more advanced culture always wipes out a less advanced one. Racism is the excuse people use to not see their victims as human. Ford saw them as very human, but he knew that the soldiers had a job to do. A dirty job. A job without heros. He is on their side first and foremost.
Very analagous to what's happening with our guys in the Middle East today by the way.
It's not always the more advanced but, yeah, a nomadic people is going to fall to any settled group over time.
There is no way it was going to turn out any different, it never has in the history of the world. The only thing about America is that we feel guilty for it.
Blake,
Your whole "The Searchers" are racist argument is hard to understand. Maybe you have a new definition of racism.
The word seems to do a lot of work these days.
Frankly, I'd rather see Lee Marvin and Lancaster in the "The Professionals" or "My Darling Clementine".
RC you picked out two movies that just missed the cut. I hated to leave them off. Along with one of my all time favorites The Gunfight at Ok Corral. Burt and Kurt. Doc Holiday throwing knives into the door. Dennis Hopper as a blond young Billy Clanton. Doctor McCoy as one of the Earps. And above all Frankie Lane singing over the Action. Man I love to sing the OK corral song as we are doing things. I do it every time after we watch it the night before. Drives my wife batshit crazy. It's hard to leave such great films like those and the Wild Bunch and Drums Along the Mohawk and Ride the High Country. But I went for ten films that are thought were seminal and historically significant. The two replaceable ones are Johnny Guitar and The Long Riders but that's just personal perferance. Thanks for stopping by dude.
Your whole "The Searchers" are racist argument is hard to understand. Maybe you have a new definition of racism.
The word seems to do a lot of work these days.
Nope. It's very simple. Let's say I am making a movie about a vicious racist who hates Tohesians. I show him in the movie talking about how Tohesians like to hump mufflers and drop anvils on people's heads.
So far I'm not being racist. I showing racism.
If I, the filmmaker, then portray a bunch of Tohesians humping mufflers and dropping anvils on people's heads, then I'm siding with the racist and am a racist myself.
I am not aware of any situation such as portrayed in The Searchers where women were rendered mute animals by being kidnapped by Indians. Quite the contrary. A great many of them seemed to prefer that life, or at the minimum, were indifferent.
I'm willing to concede that I might be wrong about this; that there's historical precedence for it. But if there isn't and John Ford didn't have any basis for saying there was, that boosts the likelihood of The Searchers being racist, rather than being about racism.
Frankly, I'd rather see Lee Marvin and Lancaster in the "The Professionals" or "My Darling Clementine".
Oh, excellent choices. The Professionals is particularly under-rated.
Still dunno why "Clementine" is called that....
It's called that because of the song that is played in the dance sequence. Fonda is very stiff and formal as he dances with his love interest at the church social. Ford always has dance sequences in his films. In Fort Apache the dance is intergal to the plot. My Darling Clemintine was a famous song of the era. As usual Ford was true to the period.
One of the best things about that movie was the performance of Victore Mature as Doc Holiday. Totally wrong as a historical record but still a lot of fun. Holiday was a dentist not a surgeon and this performance was just like science fiction. The best Doc Holiday bar none was Val Kilmer in Tombstone which was almost 100% historically accurate.
Val Kilmer's fuck you I don't care if I die as long as I kill you performance is his best in his career.
Doc Holliday: I'm your huckleberry...
(Tombstone 1993)
Ah, interesting point. I didn't make the connection with the dance.
Dead on about Kilmer and Tombstone. Near perfect film, except...except...the whole thing with Dana Delaney is weird.
Blake,
What is the support for this statement?
"I am not aware of any situation such as portrayed in The Searchers where women were rendered mute animals by being kidnapped by Indians. Quite the contrary. A great many of them seemed to prefer that life, or at the minimum, were indifferent."
Quimosabe, if you think White women preferred to be kidnapped by Comanche's and forced to live as squaws, you need to read more history. Maybe, you think "Dances with Wolves" was accurate, .
What is the support for this statement?
You could start with the Wikipedia entry for "The Searchers".
"Near the end of the story, Debbie’s apparent willingness to leave Scar’s household with Marty represents a significant departure from most historical models. In real life, abducted children who spent more than a year with the Comanches typically became highly assimilated and did not want to leave their adoptive people."
Quimosabe, if you think White women preferred to be kidnapped by Comanche's and forced to live as squaws, you need to read more history. Maybe, you think "Dances with Wolves" was accurate
Chill, dude. I've done nothing but say it doesn't jibe with my understanding of history, and I've never suggested that my understanding of history was perfect. In fact, my respect for Ford is what makes me hesitate here. But just because Ford was working with the best understanding of his time doesn't mean that he had it right.
But I also seem to recall some diaries of women at the time. "Forced to live as squaws" is a man's perception, the kind Ethan would use to stir people up. From a practical standpoint, "prarie housewife" is not much different from "squaw".
Blake,
Not trying to be confrontational, just trying to understand.
So you're really talking about captive children adopting to Comanche ways. OK, thats different than woman being kidnapped and kept captive.
Of course, we're not told why Debbie is mute, but we can guess any number of reasons. Maybe, Scar isn't the nicest guy in the world. You have to wonder why he's out by himself. Maybe even the Comanche's didn't like him.
It's possible. And, of course, it's not Ford's responsibility to be PC. Not all Italians are in the mob, but Godfather still works.
But I seem to recall reading full grown women adapting pretty well.
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