Fortunato Film School WAKR Interview - The Searchers (1956)

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:06]It's the Ray Horner Morning Show.

[00:00:08]>> Thanks for waking me up with a smile.

[00:00:09]>> On 93.590 W AKR >> 93.5 1590 W AKR 10 minutes after 8:00. It's time to bring him in. Dr. Joe for Tonado. It's time for a trip to film school.

[00:00:30]We always appreciate Joe making time for us on a Friday morning. And we've spent some time with a '9s flicks for the last month or so. It's a Memorial Day weekend. And Joe's going to go back in time with one an old western that maybe you haven't seen in quite some time, but a landmark film for sure. And I'll let Joe take it from there. Good morning, Dr. Joe Fortado. How are you this morning?

[00:00:58]>> Good morning, Ray. Good morning, everybody. And yes, not just a western, but what many regard as the greatest western, that is The Searchers, John Ford's classic from 1956, believe it or not, released in May of 1956, so it's celebrating its 70th anniversary this month. Uh I already mentioned directed by the great John Ford written by Frank Nent based on the novel by Alan Lame starring the great John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood, the music was composed by Max Steiner, the great composer Max Steiner.

[00:01:34]Now what's surprising about this is as lauded and as remembered and as worshiped as this film is, and I'll get into that more lately, there was no Oscar nominations, believe it or not, for this film. John Ford was nominated for a director's guild award. Didn't win, but that's kind of unusual for a film with this kind of weight. Now, let's look at some of its awards or rankings. It ranked number one on the AFI's list of 100 greatest westerns. It was among the first 25 movies to be selected into the Library of Congress National Film Registry. In in 20 2007, the AFI ranked it as the number 12 greatest movie of all time regarding what genre and Sight and Sound, which is sort of the worldwide British equivalent of the AFI list, ranked it as the seventh greatest film of all time. The film did pretty well when it was released. It was tied with Rebel Without a Cause as 1956 11th box office attraction. So, it didn't quite crack the top 10, but it did respectably. Now, what's interesting is Natalie Wood starred in both of those, Rebel Without a Cause and The Searchers. Kind of interesting. Um, for those who aren't familiar with the film, because I realized it's an old film, John Wayne plays an American Civil War veteran who embarks on a years'sl long journey to rescue his niece, played by Natalie Wood, from the Comanches after the rest of his brothers uh are massacred in a raid on their Texas farm. So, it's a revenge film essentially, and he's out for revenge. Uh, and it was filmed in the Monument Valley in Arizona where John Ford did so many of his great westerns. And this is in color. It looks gorgeous. In fact, this was his John Ford's first widescreen western that he ever shot. And the great David Lean, who directed Lawrence of Arabia, watched this movie repeatedly while preparing for shooting Lawrence of Arabia to give him a sense of how to shoot landscapes.

[00:03:27]Uh the list of influences and lovers of this movie is long and impressive.

[00:03:32]Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsesei, George Lucas, John Millius all regard this as one of the films that have influenced them the most and have it paid some kind of homage in their own work. In fact, the visual imagery of the desert of Tatooine in Star Wars is greatly influenced by the scenes in the searchers. So there's a direct comparison there from from George Lucas and even television. Now this TV series is very cinematic, but Vince Gilligan who created Breaking Bad said he was heavily influenced by the film when he was bringing Breaking Bad into the world.

[00:04:09]>> Joe, is it the cinematography, the story, John Wayne? What makes this at the top of the list when you talk about westerns and beyond?

[00:04:19]>> Well, you know, it's a little interesting. Obviously, it's all of those things. John Ford is one of the greatest directors we've ever had. The Duke, John Wayne, one of the greatest actors and western actors in particularly that we've ever had. And he considers this to be his best character.

[00:04:34]So, it's a well done story. It's a very adult western. You know, it's it's not cowboys and Indians kind of stereotypes or anything from the real old days. So, it has a lot of those things. And of course, the cinematography is just breathtaking. But, you know, it's funny because this is a movie that I think has really garnered appreciation over the years, and I'll give you a little hint of why I believe that. So, I talk about the AFI list all the time, and they used to do it every 10 years or so. I wish they would update it actually. But when they did this list in 1998, this movie, The Searchers, was ranked number 96. When they did it in 2007, almost 10 years later, it was ranked number 12. That's a huge jump, you know, all the way up into the top 20. And like I said, Spielberg, Scorsese, they all regard this as as one of their most influential films. So, I think it's reputation has really built up over the years as well. And there's a lot of fun stories. I don't really don't even have time to tell them all, but just to kind of give you a little insight into John Wayne, because I know we all love John Wayne. And one of the actresses was found crying in one of the teepeees by John Wayne between shooting scenes. And when Wayne asked her why she was crying, she responded that she was going to miss her son's wedding because she was filming her scenes at the time. Well, Wayne stopped production of the film for a few days and flew her to California in his own plane so that she could attend the wedding, which that's a very wonderful, generous thing to do. Another time during the filming, a Navajo child became seriously ill with pneumonia and needed urgent med medical attention.

[00:06:06]John Wayne had his airplane again on location and had the pilot take the little girl to the hospital and the Navajos named him the man with the big eagle, the big plane. This is a more of a story about John Ford who was a very tough personality, kind of an irassable figure. While they were on a desert local, John Ford was stung by a scorpion and worried about the the investment in the film. One of the financial backers asked John Wayne, "Well, what if we lose him? What are we going to do?" Wayne offered to check on the stricken director and a few minutes later he came out of John Ford's trailer and said to the investor, "It's okay. John's fine.

[00:06:42]It's the Scorpion that died."

[00:06:45]So, almost like a Chuck Norris joke for for John Ford there. And you know, Natalie Wood was just a high school student when she was filming this movie. And on several occasions, believe it or not, John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter, the young actor who starred in the film as well, had to pick her up from school. So, you can imagine the great deal of excitement that might have incurred at the pickup drop off place uh at her school, particularly with her female classmates.

[00:07:13]>> Wonderful relationship with John Ford and and John Wayne. I mean, they did so many collaborations together in the world of movies and films.

[00:07:23]>> They really did. And you know, I'll just squeeze in a couple more anecdotes here.

[00:07:27]Legend has it that the film was seen in Texas by Buddy Holly and his friends in the summer of 1956. And they were so impressed with John Wayne and his phrase, That'll Be the Day, that they used that title for their now standard song that we all know, That'll Be the Day by Buddy Holly. And it it also has other influences. The Mercy Beat band from the British invasion, the Searchers, in the early 60s, took their name from this film. Their most famous song was a song called Needles and Pins, which some of our older listeners might remember. But so there's a tremendous amount of cultural impact that this film had as well as just cinematic impact.

[00:08:05]>> Well, you've piqu my interest, I think, with the weekend this weekend and I'm going to do a lot of relaxing. I'm going to pull this baby up and I'm going to watch it again. You've really piqu my interest with the cinematography. I really love the the beautiful views of some of these westerns. I'm a sucker for a good western when they show the mountainscapes and all that stuff. And like you said, this one is good.

[00:08:27]>> Watch it on a big screen or the biggest screen you can and a Blu-ray or or better if you have the Blu-rays. It looks fantastic.

[00:08:34]>> All right, Joe, what else do you have for us this morning? Anything going on with you out and about at your website?

[00:08:40]>> Well, I keep teasing that some things are going to be listed as the summer progresses, and that's true, but right now it's just I want everybody to go to and maybe bookmark my website, joefortunado.net. net. There's nothing up there now in terms of events that are coming up in the immediate future. But we will have some events coming up this summer and those are going to be listed very shortly and you can always go to the website and just look at older content, learn a little bit about me, what I do and that kind of stuff and that's at joefortunado.net and we welcome everybody to join us there.

[00:09:09]>> All right, my friend. Well, listen, have a good weekend. We'll do this again next week. Good one with the searchers today as Joe took us to film school. Thanks, Joe.

[00:09:18]>> Okay, great. Look forward to it. See you next week.

[00:09:19]>> You got it. Dr. Joe Fortunado joining us live this morning with film school here on 93.51590 W A KR.