Cinema Bestius: The Searchers

Some semi-random thoughts on the greatest Western ever made.

#13 – The Searchers

I once read that Martin Scorsese used to screen The Searchers in his NYU film class in the late 1960s, but such was the polarizing force of star John Wayne’s conservatism that many students announced their intentions to boycott the screening. Scorsese instead told students that that week’s screening was an obscure, hard-to-see gem, locked the doors once the students were in attendance, revealed he would be screening the obscure gem the next week but tonight was screening The Searchers, and assured any students walking out that they would immediately fail his class.

Scorsese wanted his students to see this film. Later, of course, Scorsese would direct what is arguably the most successful remake of The Searchers, Taxi Driver. Great art inspires other great art.

The Plot In Brief: Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns from the Civil War years after it officially ends. He visits the homestead of his brother, which is almost immediately besieged by a tribe of Comanche Indians led by Chief Scar (Henry Brandon). The attackers kill almost all the family members, set fire to the house, and kidnap the two youngest girls, Lucy (Pippa Scott) and Debbie (Lana Wood in the earlier scenes, but sister Natalie Wood in the majority of the film).

Ethan puts together a ragtag posse and vows to bring back the girls. Joining him are the Reverend Captain Sam Clayton (Ward Bond), neighbor Brad Jorgensen (Harry Carey, Jr.) and the young and impetuous Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter). They soon discover that Lucy has been tortured and killed, but Ethan vows to continue searching for Debbie. The search winds up taking years and becomes a physical manifestation of Ethan’s utter hatred for Native Americans. Will Debbie be rescued? Would Ethan rather see Debbie dead, rather than become a bride of Chief Scar? Why aren’t all Westerns this morally complex?

I screened The Searchers in my Film Studies class for decades, and it always turned out to be one of the students’ favorites of the semester. I think they were expecting something simplistic—the “bang bang” simplicity of childhood play. Instead, they were treated to a rousing story, superbly told; and a morally complex tale showing the corrosive effect of racial hatred; and some fun “bang bang” cowboy stuff too!

The Searchers is unique in that it does not simply use racism as a plot point or a clothesline upon which to hang easy platitudes, it is actually about racism and the effects its on the soul. Ethan is beyond being haunted by his irrational hatred of Native Americans, it is the only thing left that defines him and drives him. We see in The Searchers a theme that would become a favorite of countless other filmmakers (I’m looking at you, John Woo): that of the good guy and the bad guy being essentially interchangeable. They cannot stand each other because they recognize too much of themselves in each other.

After a recent Chicago Film Critics Association screening of 1941, I asked Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski if they thought Slim Pickens’s line, “Boy, watch that knife!” was a reference to Ward Bond’s very similar line in The Searchers. Childress said he was not sure but would not be surprised, given that Spielberg has screened The Searchers before directing every one of his films.

And of course, a young Buddy Holly sees the film during its original release, is taken with Ethan Edwards’s oft-repeated response to being challenged, and goes home to write “That’ll Be The Day.” Great art inspires other great art.

The Searchers’ Three Miracles: John Wayne’s career-best performance, brave and inevitable, like the turning of the Earth; a bountiful supply of terrific supporting performances, all of them perfectly cast; and John Ford’s exquisite direction, which never calls attention to itself. Ford was a master storyteller.

In nomine Ford, et Wayne, y spiritu Scorsese, Amen.

Cinema Bestius: 12 Angry Men

I find this film guilty… of excellence.

#16 – 12 Angry Men

One of only a handful of films that, if it suddenly appears on TCM while I am channel surfing, I feel compelled to drop everything and watch, the 1957 film 12 Angry Men benefits from repeated viewings. The film is outwardly so simple—twelve jurors must reach agreement—but this very simplicity hides layers of meaning and allegory.

12 Angry Men is also a profoundly American film. It suggests that, though the going is often difficult, we can as a nation work through our differences. In this it is democratic to its core; I can think of few other films that speak to the American experience as simply and profoundly. Lately, if I let my sadness and cynicism get the better of me, I can imagine this narrative set in 2016; but in this brave new remake of 12 Angry Men, Juror #10 bellows on and on about some fake news he read on the Facebook, railroads the other jurors, and sends the innocent kid to the electric chair.

The Plot In Brief: A group of jurors deliberate on a verdict. The case seems open and shut: a young man has stabbed his father to death in a fit of rage. One juror (Henry Fonda) is unsure of the boy’s guilt and tries to convince the other jurors that this defendant may be innocent.

The performances in this film are uniformly outstanding. The characters represent a cross section of white American males in the late 1950s. (When the film was remade for cable network Showtime in the ’90s, an effort was made to somewhat diversify the cast.) Juror #1 (Martin Balsam) is a high-school teacher. Juror #2 (John Fiedler) is a milquetoast and easily swayed. Juror #3 (Lee J. Cobb) is a tough customer and a loudmouth. Juror #4 (E.G. Marshall) is a cool, implacable professional. Juror #5 (Jack Klugman) is a young man from an impoverished background. Juror #6 (Edward Binns) is a no-nonsense working stiff.

Juror #7 (Jack Warden) is a sports fan; he worries that jury duty will keep him from a big ballgame. Juror #8 (Henry Fonda) is the moral center of the film; he questions how easily the other men can condemn the accused. Juror #9 (Joseph Sweeney) is an older man but far from feeble. Juror #10 (Ed Begley) is a crank with a summer cold. Juror #11 (George Voskovec) is a recent immigrant, impeccable in dress and speech. Juror #12 (Robert Webber) is an obnoxious advertising man, supercilious and shallow.

Between his performance here as Juror #8, his performance as Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell in Advise and Consent (1962), and his performance as the President of the United States in Fail-Safe (1964), Henry Fonda represented the country’s moral center around the time I was born. Even in more light-hearted fare like Mister Roberts, Fonda brings a gravitas and integrity that cannot be faked. (I find this interesting because in real life, according to his famous children Jane and Peter, Fonda was something of a disagreeable scold.)

AN ANNOYING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PAUSE: I once served on a jury (my Popeish infallibility only extends to film, not to pedestrian injury claims.) The facts of the case to which I was assigned could not have been more different from those of the film, yet I was amazed by the similarity of the experience. Most of us, to a greater or lesser degree, go through our days not noticing that we spend much of our time with people whose lives are not much different than our own. Jury duty is the great melting pot and equalizer. In what other situation do we spend a week or more communicating closely with people of all ages, genders, races, and beliefs? It was broadening and instructional. I marveled at how much of our pained deliberations resembled the film. Also, the lunch they brought in for us every day was exquisite.

12 Angry Men was Sidney Lumet’s first feature film after toiling in live television for years. Lumet’s direction is terrific. With the jurors stuck talking in a cramped room for the duration of the film, Lumet wanted the film to “close in” on the viewer as it progresses. At first, he positions his camera above eye level and uses wide-angle lenses to create a greater sense of distance between the men. As the film marches to its dramatic conclusion, Lumet lowers his camera, transitions to telephoto lenses, and favors tight close-ups of the jurors. Using this simple trick, Lumet succeeds in making the film itself feel claustrophobic. As the juror’s points of view change about the case, Lumet literally changes the audience’s point of view. Brilliant.

When considering the genre that fits 12 Angry Men best, I immediately choose the Hollywood Social Problem film, but that is only partially correct. It is also a murder mystery and one of the cleverest ever concocted. It takes most of the clichés and conventions of the standard detective story and turns them on their ears. It is the jury here making the brilliant deductions—not the police officer, detective, or prosecuting attorney. Somehow, important and telling details have eluded everyone except these twelve guys. Is this meant to suggest that, when forced to consider diverse perspectives, our own perspective becomes keener?

12 Angry Men was nominated for three Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It lost all three because Oscar almost always gets it wrong.

12 Angry Men’s Three Miracles: a tight, smart script by Reginald Rose that should be studied in every screenwriting class; a lead performance by Henry Fonda that should be studied in every acting class; and direction by Sidney Lumet that should be… well, you get the idea.

Cinema Bestius: North by Northwest

Call me crazy, but this Pope longs to be chased by a goddamned crop dusting plane.

#19 – North by Northwest

Talk about an iconic scene! I remember one April night in 1980, watching the evening news with the sound turned off. When the indelible image of Cary Grant being chased by that improbable plane appeared over the anchorman’s shoulder, I knew it was to announce Hitchcock’s death. That image—from this week’s featured film, North by Northwest—so well summarizes Hitchcock’s entire career: a sequence with its tongue firmly in cheek, it’s ridiculous, but it’s also the stuff of nightmares. It makes the dangerous fun. That is what Hitchcock did again and again during the 50 years he made movies.

The Plot in Brief: Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is an advertising executive whose life is stuck in a rut. One day, responding to a page in a restaurant, he is mistaken for government spy George Kaplan. Some other spies are chasing Kaplan and a strange sculpture full of microfilm. How will Thornhill convince everyone that he is not George Kaplan? Will Thornhill ever find the real George Kaplan? What does all of this have to do with Mount Rushmore?

This film is classic Hitchcock: an innocent man is accused of a crime he did not commit and spends the rest of the film trying to prove his innocence. If anyone ever asks what all Hitchcock films have in common, it is guilt. We are guilty. His characters are guilty. That is something Hitchcock knew about everyone: we all harbor tremendous guilt… and secrets.

Clearly, North by Northwest is a boy’s adventure film. It posits adulthood as a life of drudgery, boredom, and routine, and it knows we all secretly long to be tested by action and excitement. Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill is alive but has no “life.” He longs to break free of the shackles of business and live a life like he sees in the movies. Watching North by Northwest is like taking a crazy vacation where our lives are in danger at every turn.

BY THE WAY: The famous sequence in North by Northwest in which Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are chased across the faces of Mount Rushmore inspired Mel Brooks, when preparing his Hitchcock send-up High Anxiety, to film a sequence where he emerged from George Washington’s nose wearing a green jumpsuit. That sequence, needless to say, did not make the final cut of the film.

North by Northwest represents the height of moviemaking in the 1950s: the plot is clever, the dialogue is witty and urbane, the performers are glamorous and believable, the direction is astute and never calls attention to itself, the set-pieces (including the crop duster scene and the Mount Rushmore face chase) are iconic, and the musical score is rousing and memorable—truly a full evening’s entertainment. This film is a glass of bubbly champagne, courtesy of Mr. Hitchcock. It never takes itself too seriously, but it provides its thrills and intrigues with class and energy.

Interestingly enough, it was the success of North By Northwest that inadvertently led to Hitchcock’s next project. Hitchcock chalked up the film’s popularity to its stars, or budget, or genre, or script, or vivid Technicolor; he wondered if audiences would ever flock to a movie just for HIM. He decided to make his next film bare bones and low-budget, using his television show crew and shooting quickly in black and white, in that most disreputable genre, horror—he wanted to see if he could make himself, as director, the main attraction. The film he made was Psycho.

North by Northwest’s three miracles: the perfect mix of all things Hitchcock: improbable story told with precise logic, big star performances, and a twinkling sense of humor, even about inappropriate things; James Mason plays a terrific “Bond villain”—suave, sophisticated, and menacing—five years before Bond was ever put on screen; and Cary Grant turns in one of his best, typically effortless, performances.

“In nomine Hitchcock, et Grant, y spiritu Ernest Lehman… amen.”

I would like to thank my second period College Composition class for their assistance in writing this column: Erin Allegetti, Ena Cizmic, Marc Clay, Nataly Duran, Abisay Hernandez, Dan Hudzik, Andrew Keyser, Dan Klingler, Martin Kunev, Luis Lopez, Aniyah McCullum, Raunak Patel, Joe Plewa, Rahat Ramzan, Harmony Richardson, Abigail Rogers, Jakub Sokol, Haylee Spence, Amber Stoffle, Cristian Terrazas, and Kamila Wiklanski. You guys are the bestius.