The Searchers
Summary
John Wayne ’s greatest Western get a lightly - disguised remake in 2003 , which was presently forgotten . The Searchersby theatre director John Ford cast Wayne as Ethan Edwards , a biting Civil War vet who returns to his family . However , when most of them are down in a Comanche maraud and his niece is snatch , Ethan sets out on a blinking , years - long quest alongside his nephew to discover her . The Seachers ' sensational cinematography , moody story and Wayne ’s mesmerizing performance have seen the 1956 escapade praise as one ofJohn Wayne ’s best Westerns- if notthebest westerly , full stop .
The Searchershas peck of celebrity sports fan , including Martin Scorsese , George Lucas and Steven Spielberg ; the latter claim to rewatch it every time he ’s about to make a new movie . There has never been a lineal remake ofThe Calosoma scrutator , and with good reason ; it ’s hard to top a film many critics and scholars study one of the all - prison term greats . There have been plenty of movies that borrowed its concept and reworked them , often to assorted success .
In 1977 , John Wayne was ask to heel his five personal favorite moving-picture show , which just so happened to include two popular movies of his own .
Ron Howard’s The Missing Reimagines John Wayne’s The Searchers
Howard finally scratched his Western itch with this bleak riff on The Searchers
horse opera enjoyed a brief revival during the ' 90 due toDances with WolvesandUnforgiven , but the literary genre soon went inactive again . One of the few major studio horse opera produced during the early ' 00s wasThe Missing , a 2003 adventure from Ron Howard that starred Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones . The report involves Blanchett ’s James Leonard Farmer being forced to reunify with her estranged father Sam ( Jones ) to rescue her girl , who renegade Apache have kidnapped . Howard is n’t on the dot known for dismal , R - rated transportation , which makesThe Missingvery singular in his filmography .
The film adapted the 1996 novelThe Last Ride , butThe Missingis really a new take onThe Searchers . They both involve an estranged family fellow member returning home and being impel to set out on a dangerous rescue missionary post for a bonk one . In an intriguing turn on the Wayne original , Jones ' character is n’t a antiblack bigot , but a blanched man who spend year go as part of the Chiricahua clan . This gives him an perceptivity into their culture - while acknowledge he can never truly become part of it - which is somethingThe Searcherswasn’t interested in occupy with .
The Missingis currently available to stream on Max .
Howard himself deniedThe Searcherswas much of an inspiration forThe Missingduring aBBCinterview , lay claim the characters and musical theme made the two Westerns very different . Even so , the comparisons are apparent to see , andThe Missingis about as near to an actual remaking ofThe Searchersas audiences are likely to get .
The Missing Completely Bombed (Despite A Great Cast)
Audiences had little interest in a Searchers remake back in 2003
On newspaper publisher , The Missingshould have been a slam dunk . It had a hot managing director in Howard ( Apollo 13,A Beautiful Mind , etc ) and a cast that included Blanchett , Jones , Evan Rachel Wood , Aaron Eckhart and even a surprise cameo by Val Kilmer . Even so , selling audience in 2003 on a trigger-happy Western that ends on a sedative drug was always going to be a struggle . Despite the gift in front of and behind the camera onThe Missing , it also received uniformly tepid reviews .
critic could n’t refuse focusing onThe Searchers ' parallels , but often as a markagainstThe Missing . Reviewers also feltThe Missingreveled in genre commonplace and was too dreary and humorless for its own good . The photographic film is mostly forgotten now , andThe Missingonly grossed $ 38 million worldwide on a production budget of $ 60 million(viaBox Office Mojo ) . It ’s a shame because Howard ’s film is one of the good horse opera of its era , and something of a misplace gem .
Why Hollywood Keeps Remaking The Searchers
The Searchers' template is constantly recycled by Hollywood
For younger viewer , there ’s a honorable probability they only know ofThe Searchersbecause of the number of films that have reference it . The most famousSearchersremake isStar Wars , with its premiss of a naive tyke team up with a veteran warrior to rescue a kidnapped young charwoman being a direct aerodynamic lift . There ’s also a reprise of theSearcherssequence where Ethan returns to the burned out farm to come up the body of his family ; Mark Hamill ’s Luke Skywalker goes through the same trauma when he discovers the charred corpses of his aunty and uncle .
Kurt Russell starred in two Western back in 2015 , with one being a stealth remake of one of John Wayne ’s most acclaimed westerly adventures .
2015’sBone Tomahawkfollows a like structure toThe Searchers- before taking a hard right wing into a cannibal moving picture - while 2011 sci - fi actionerPriesthas scenes almost identical toThe Searchers . EvenTaxi Driverplays on Ford ’s epic , with Travis ' ( Robert De Niro ) rescue of Jodie Foster ’s Iris being a remix of Wayne ’s Ethan bring through his niece , Debbie . In 2007 , director Alex Cox made the indie featureSearchers 2.0 , but despite the title , it has nothing to do with the 1956 Western .
The Searchers is a 1956 Western drama starring John Wayne. Wayne stars as Ethan Edwards, who goes searching for his missing niece after his brother’s family is killed by the Comanche tribe. Helmed by director John Ford, The Searchers is now considered one of the greatest American Westerns ever made.
LikeThe Missing , there are unnumerable examples of Hollywood remakingThe Searchersin ways both elusive and blindingly obvious . That ’s because the simplicity of westerly story loan themselves well to newfangled adaptations . For instance , Wayne’sRio Bravohas been remixed many prison term , include John Carpenter’sAssault on Precinct 13 , whileHigh Noonwas rework as sci - fi thrillerOutland . The Searchershas a square templet to work up a story around , so interview should expect more remixes in the future .
author : BBC , Box Office Mojo
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The Searchers is a 1956 Western drama starring John Wayne . Wayne stars as Ethan Edwards , who goes searching for his missing niece after his blood brother ’s kinsperson is bolt down by the Comanche kin . helm by music director John Ford , The Searchers is now considered one of the big American Westerns ever made .
