The Searchers (Ultimate Collector's Edition) |  | Directors: John Ford, Nick Redman
Actors: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.98
Buy New: $9.95
as of 3/17/2010 00:09 EDT details
You Save: $30.03 (75%)
New (41) Used (20) from $5.06
Seller: mjentertainment
Rating:  314 reviews
Sales Rank: 57303
Format: Widescreen, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.6 x 1.3
MPN: WARD80433D
UPC: 012569804333
EAN: 0012569804333
ASIN: B000F0V0LI
Theatrical Release Date: March 13, 1956
Release Date: June 6, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A classic Western regarded by many as the best of the genre, John Ford's THE SEARCHERS has been acknowledged by several directors who came into their own in the 1970s, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Paul Schrader, and George Lucas, as a powerful influence on their work. The film stars John Wayne as Ethan Edwards, a case-hardened Civil War veteran returning to his brother Aaron's (Walter Coy) Texas home in 1868. When Rev. Samuel Johnson Clayton (Ward Bond) arrives to raise a posse to run down the Comanche who have stolen the cattle of neighbor Lars Jorgenson (John Qualen), Ethan is among those who join him. They return to find the Edwards family slaughtered and the two girls, Lucy (Pippa Scott) and Debbie (Natalie Wood), missing. The posse continues to search for the girls but turns back as winter settles in. However, Ethan and his reluctantly accepted companion, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), the girls' part-Cherokee stepbrother, press on for another seven years, with the Indian-hating veteran becoming ever more fanatical as the hard seasons pass. In his epic meditation on racism, obsession, paranoia, and the myth of the West, Ford explores the ugly underside of a genre that he had imbued with optimism in his early career. Wayne gives perhaps his most powerful performance as the embittered Edwards, but it's the visual poetry of what are possibly Ford's most carefully framed, lit, and composed images that shape this masterwork from beginning to end. As Wayne walks through the doorway at the film's end, he grabs his elbow in a tribute to his and Ford's close friend Harry Carey Sr., a Western film icon who had passed away a few years before.
Amazon.com essential video
A favorite film of some of the world's greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, John Ford's The Searchers has earned its place in the legacy of great American films for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most notably, it's the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western--the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of the West. The story takes place in Texas in 1868; Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran who visits his brother and sister-in-law at their ranch and is horrified when they are killed by marauding Comanches. Ethan's search for a surviving niece (played by young Natalie Wood) becomes an all-consuming obsession. With the help of a family friend (Jeffrey Hunter) who is himself part Cherokee, Ethan hits the trail on a five-year quest for revenge. At the peak of his masterful talent, director Ford crafts this classic tale as an embittered examination of racism and blind hatred, provoking Wayne to give one of the best performances of his career. As with many of Ford's classic Westerns, The Searchers must contend with revisionism in its stereotypical treatment of "savage" Native Americans, and the film's visual beauty (the final shot is one of the great images in all of Western culture) is compromised by some uneven performances and stilted dialogue. Still, this is undeniably one of the greatest Westerns ever made. --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com
A favorite film of some of the world's greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, John Ford's The Searchers has earned its place in the legacy of great American films for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most notably, it's the definitive role for John Wayne as an icon of the classic Western--the hero (or antihero) who must stand alone according to the unwritten code of the West. The story takes place in Texas in 1868; Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a Confederate veteran who visits his brother and sister-in-law at their ranch and is horrified when they are killed by marauding Comanches. Ethan's search for a surviving niece (played by young Natalie Wood) becomes an all-consuming obsession. With the help of a family friend (Jeffrey Hunter) who is himself part Cherokee, Ethan hits the trail on a five-year quest for revenge. At the peak of his masterful talent, director Ford crafts this classic tale as an embittered examination of racism and blind hatred, provoking Wayne to give one of the best performances of his career. As with many of Ford's classic Westerns, The Searchers must contend with revisionism in its stereotypical treatment of "savage" Native Americans, and the film's visual beauty (the final shot is one of the great images in all of Western culture) is compromised by some uneven performances and stilted dialogue. Still, this is undeniably one of the greatest Westerns ever made. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 314
 Great movie and great customer service March 7, 2010
Jose Vazquez (Corona, New York, US)
Wow, great picture quality on this bluray. Shipping was really fast. I got it right away with no damage at all. Super great service!The Searchers [Blu-ray]
 A good I ndian is a dead Indian February 10, 2010
Jacques COULARDEAU (OLLIERGUES France)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This film is slightly better than most films with John Wayne, but in retrospective. A farm is attacked by some Indians. Everyone is killed except a very young girl who is taken along by the Indian chief. The film is the story of the tracking of this chief and the salvaging, retrieval and liberation of the girl who was made the chief's wife, one of them. It shows how the girl will, when found, ask for her fellow whites to consider her life is set and settled now and that she must be left to her lot. They will fail this first time but they will go on searching for her and they will finally trap the Indian community and they will demonstrate their great generosity by killing all the Indians and only recuperating the white girl by force. At the time when the film came out it was vindicating that genocidal treatment of Indians based on the myth that the whites had the right to take Indian land without even paying for it. Today it is a perfect demonstration how deep that genocidal spirit is engrained in the American consciousness of history. We have to celebrate the very recent decision of Congress to provide some Indians with reparations for the way they were treated, even after having been parked in reservations, as a miracle of faithfulness to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, for whose Founding Fathers there was no doubt that Indians and enslaved or indentured people, mostly Black, were not born equal, because they were not born human. The film shows how the dominant culture in the USA and in Hollywood used the genocide of the Indians as a good conscience builder among the whites who were engaged in so many wars all around the world against "minority races".
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID
Western Classic February 5, 2010
Michael Berg
Before directors had special effects to wow their audiences, they used scenery.
It's hard to beat Monument Valley for great eye candy, probably why John Ford used it in so many of his westerns.
Blu Ray brings back the detail of the big screen, amplifying the directors original intent.
Good script, good movie.
Great movie at a great price. February 1, 2010
D. Nooe
I had never seen this movie until recently and have been sucked in to watching it whenever it is on tv now. Great John Ford classic! I couldn't pass up this great deal.
Discover this film's true significance January 31, 2010
Jackson K. Eskew (USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
For a truly profound review of this film - one that goes beyond the tired clichés of identity politics, for example - see John Carroll's excellent The Wreck of Western Culture: Humanism Revisited. In a chapter devoted to John Ford, Carroll writes at length on this film, going far beyond the superficial analyses offered here in the "Amazon.com essential video" review or any of the other reviews here, beyond those by Scorcese and Spielberg in the AFI appreciation video posted on youtube, and beyond those of any professional film critics I've read. Go to the book's page at isi dot org to read an interview with the author, at the bottom of the page.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 314
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