Ben Mankiewicz (0:00)

The McDonald's Snack Wrap is back. You brought it back. Ranch Snack Wrap. Spicy snack wrap. You broke the Internet for a snack? Snack wrap is back. In Monument Valley, John Ford had found the perfect location for his westerns and those five square miles of desert straddling the Utah and Arizona borders. Although surrounded by 20th century America, this land is almost untouched by time itself. But the truth is, Monument Valley doesn't really belong to either of those states. For this is the home of the Navajo, the largest Indian reservation in America. John Ford was making movies in Navajo country. The Navajo Indians made me an honorary chief. This is John Ford. They called me Natani Nez, which means big soldier. When I go back there, I've got to kiss more babies. And a politician. Navajo has often worked on Ford's films. One Navajo in particular had a special relationship with Ford. Old Fat, his name was. Yeah, that's what they called it. This is Harry Cary Jr. His nickname is Dobie. He acted in three John Ford movies set in Monument Valley. Each time, Ford buddied up to a Navajo man called Old Fat. An old. Old big, big belly on him. And he wore. He didn't wear Navajo clothes. He wore a khaki. As I recall, he wore a khaki shirt and khaki work pants. Old Fat was a medicine man, one of the Navajo's spiritual leaders. John Ford respected his power and position, even relied on him to get the shots Ford wanted in ways you might call unusual. We'd have a bright blue sky. He'd say, tell Old Fat that I want some clouds. And over there on that side is long, long streaky ones, you know. And the old man would go up there, he'd give him a drink of whiskey and he'd sit him up on top of the mountain. And by God, here come the clouds. He's a real medicine man. And he'd get the clouds, use him on every picture. Many in the crew thought relying on Old Fat was a waste of time. Not John Ford. And of course, there's that famous story. And when they went to Old Fat and asked him, you know, what the weather was going to be like the next day. And this is after 10 years of relying on his predictions, you know. And he said, I don't know. And he said, what do you mean you don't know what the weather's gonna be like? You know, you're medicine man and everything. He said, radio's broke. Ain't that funny? In the summer of 1955, Old Fat must have been busy on that mountain because John Ford was back in Monument Valley making what would become his masterpiece, arguably the most beautiful and most disturbing western in cinema history. I'm your host, Ben Mankiewicz. You're listening to season five of the Plot Thickens, a podcast from Turner Classic Movies. Each season we bring you an in depth story about the movies and the people who make them. This season we partnered with Novel for decoding John Ford, the most influential filmmaker of the last hundred years. This is episode six, the myth maker. By 1955, John Ford had made dozens of westerns. This time, though, he wanted to push the boundaries of what the western could do. From the thrilling pages of life rides a lusty, rough and boisterous slice of history called the Searchers. The Searchers is concealed, consistently ranked among the greatest movies ever made. It especially influenced directors of the new Hollywood era. Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Peter Bogdanovich, they all raved about it. Part of the Searcher's power is entirely visual. It's just a thrilling movie to look at. But other parts of it, the story, the violence, the hero, those are more complicated. When you're wrestling with Ford, you are basically wrestling with the Searchers. People have very different takes on the Searchers. The Searchers is very anti racist in some ways, but has elements of racism. The interesting thing about the Searchers is that it's a very tough movie. The Searchers just kind of haunts me. It's a film of great ambiguity, which is just not something that Ford did all that often. The Searchers is without a doubt John Ford's greatest achievement. He described it as a tragedy of the loner. Ford himself was kind of a loner. He liked being alone at sea, on the arena or out in the desert, away from Hollywood. And on every movie he lived in the loneliness that comes with being in charge. Surrounded by people, even by friends, but always apart. The loner in the Searchers is Ethan Edwards, a man consumed by vengeance. Non. You stay out of this, all of you. I don't want you with me. I'll need you for what I gotta do. He's searching for his niece Debbie, who's been kidnapped by a tribe of Comanches. Ethan spends five years looking for her. We'll find him in the end. I promise you. We'll find him. When it came time to cast Ethan Edwards, John Ford didn't think twice. It's John Wayne as Ethan Edwards who had a rare kind of courage. The courage that simply. It could only be John Wayne. Well, I loved him. I love Playing this, of course, is John Wayne. But I have tried to never play the pure hero. I've always been a character of some kind. In every picture that I've done, I've tried to have some human weaknesses and admit those human weaknesses we come to trade. Only not out here. I don't stand talking in the wind. Cut. Ford started shooting the Searchers in Monument Valley on June 16, 1955. Right away, he made a key technical decision that contributed to the movie's power. He shot it in VistaVision, an early precursor to IMAX. VistaVision bringing brilliance and glowing colors never achieved before. It was a new format that made the image incredibly sharp and allowed for a greater depth of field. Shooting the movie this way meant that audiences would feel surrounded by sky and sandstone pillars. Martin Scorsese says it worked. He saw the Searchers when it came out in 1956. I gotta tell you, you never see anything quite like it. Particularly the wide shots of Monument Valley is phenomenal. It's just phenomenal. You felt you were there. John Ford had been developing his visual style for decades. Capturing it with VistaVision allowed him to innovate, something he did in more ways than one. On the Searchers, you'll stand beside director John Ford as he gives star John Wayne his final instructions for a key scene you'll visit with Monument. Surprisingly, Ford actually allowed a film crew to follow him around and document the making of the movie. You see, when John Ford was directing the Searchers, he put a camera to work behind the cameras. The result was a behind the scenes TV special. Yes, it's actually a Diary of a Motion Picture. The first of its kind so far as I know. Today it's common for a movie to have a making of documentary. But in the 1950s, it was unheard of until the Searchers. And at one point in the program, the host of the show, actor Gig Young, brings out the film's youngest star. And here comes one of the prettiest little Comanches of them all, Ms. Natalie Wood. Hello, Gig. Welcome to the reservation. Well, thank you. Natalie Wood started as a child actor. She was 8 when she made Miracle on 34th Street. She grew up in front of cameras. She was 17 when she made the Searchers. And how do you get along with the Indians? Well, in the picture, fine. But here on location, I think I sort of amaze them. You see, the Navajo keep covered from head to foot. And they regard my sunbathing in a swimsuit as rather immodest. Despite the costume, you don't really play an Indian in the picture, do you? No, that's right. I play a white girl who was captured as a child and brought up by a fierce Comanche tribe. John Wayne and a company of rangers are searching for Scar, the warrior chieftain who has captured me. Natalie Wood plays Debbie, Wayne's kidnapped niece. She'd never worked for John Ford before, but others in the cast are familiar names, all members of Ford's stock company, like Dobie Cary and Ward Bond. Not Pippa Scott, though she was another newcomer. Ford cast her in the role of redheaded teenager Lucy Edwards, Debbie's older sister. He had a predilection for redheads who reminded him of people. I mean, he used Marina Hara to use people like that all the time. Irish looking. He was darling to me. He was tender. He was careful. He was very sweet. In 2005, Pippa Scott told PBS what it was like to live and work on the set of the Searchers. All the women lived up in the motel and the men were tented down below on a. On a vast plain in which you saw all of the famous Monument Valley. It was kind of fun because there were bonfires at night and I don't know how the actors ever got any sleep. The work days were long, as Ford liked to shoot 10 to 15 setups a day. Getting sleep was important, but it was interrupted before dawn. It was gorgeous because you had an early morning breakfast watching the sun come up. And you ate a lot because by noon the winds roused up the red dust which got into everything. So nobody ever ate lunch because it was all full of grit. The red dust not only got into the food, it bothered John Ford's eyes. He'd had cataract surgery the year before. Though the operation went well, his left eye was permanently damaged. For the rest of his life, John Ford wore an eye patch. He always seemed to me to be uncomfortable because he had this weeping eye, you know, with a black patch on it. So he was forever lifting the black patch and dabbing in his eyes. So which out in that desert and in that heat and in that sand blowing atmosphere, probably was uncomfortable. Legend has it that at one point during the shoot, John Ford was stung by a scorpion and landed in bed. A worried producer sent John Wayne in to check on him. Wayne came out and declared, he's fine. It's the scorpion that died. For an important romantic subplot in the film, Ford cast a relatively unknown actress. There was something about her that I discerned. This girl has talent. There's a great American face. Her name was Vera Miles. She was at the time also a redhead. She just finished shooting a reboot of the Tarzan series. Tarzan's Hidden Jungle. No, Tarzan. You don't understand. The men he took. With the Searchers was her first big role with a major Hollywood director. Ward Bond took one look at Vera Miles and became fixated. So much so it had to be uncomfortable for a young actress just trying to do her job. This is Dobie Carry. And Ward, of course, was out of his bird. And he thought that she wanted his body. And she didn't even know he was existed. Now, looky here, Martin. Polly. I'm a woman. We women wash and mend your dirty clothes all your lives. So we had these open windows, you know, naturally to look upon Monument Valley and these. And Ward had always walk around naked, you see, waiting for Vera to go by. He wanted Vera to see him naked. He pound his chest and he barged up and down in front of this window, hoping Vera would look in and see him in the nude, you know, and turn her on. And then that didn't work. So then he'd time it. Vera was rooming with Ollie. Ollie is Olive Carey, Dobie's mother. She had a small role in the Searchers. They had Ollie in there with it to protect her, you know, because otherwise he'd have been breaking her door down. And my mom said, get out of here, you dumb son of a bitch. But what he'd do was wait and time it so he figured Vera just was taking her blouse off, see? And then he'd zoom out the door. They were right next door. And he'd open it real quick, you know, say, oh, Ollie, I just wanted to see, you know, and try to get Vera half undressed. As we know, there was always someone Ford picked on during a shoot, often war at Bond, Which I'll admit now sounds perfectly reasonable. The now peaceful Navajo have a warlike history of their own. The Navajo were everywhere on the Searchers set, mingling with the Hollywood cast and crew. They worked behind the scenes and were cast in small roles or as extras in battle scenes. Actress Pippa Scott remembers being in awe of them. And I have to say that I was transfixed by watching the Navajo people who were moving through the campsite, herding their sheep, et cetera. How incredibly beautiful they were. With every movie he shot in Monument Valley, Ford brought an influx of cash to the region. We'd pour two and three hundred thousand dollars into the tribe. Of course, this is great for the Navajos and it's great for their economy. Back Then there were few job prospects for Navajos. The two main gigs were working for John Ford or in nearby uranium mines. Ford actually paid slightly more than the mining companies. Then again, what Ford paid Native Americans paled in comparison to how much business his movies generated at the box office. Eliza Black is a history professor and citizen of the Cherokee Nation. The scope and beauty of John Ford's Westerns immediately impressed her. So I watched a lot of really poorly made movies. But when I got to something like My Darling Clementine was like, wow, visually, this is just so much nicer than the other movies I've been watching. Mayor, is that Martian job still open? Sure is. I'll take it. Black says the disparity between wages paid to the Native Americans and money earned by the studios left a bad taste in some people's mouths. I feel that there is some bitterness in Navajo country. Not so much because the Navajos weren't paid or something like that. Because they weren't paid. And they were paid similar wages to what people were making in the mines, but similar to the mines. You know, these studios made a lot of money. And none of that money goes back to the tribes. This is a Navajo medicine man named Bill Billy Yellow. He was one of many Monument Valley natives who played background characters in John Ford films. Billy was a horseman. He did occasional stunts on camera. He didn't speak English. His daughter translated for him. He said there was, even though there was a lot of us, they always provided for them money. And so he said, john Ford and John Wayne, I guess, really love the Navajos to come out here. And at least they get some money from him doing movies. He said John Ford was very nice at one time. He just came out here and gave everybody $5 each. I really appreciate it. That time they didn't have money at all. At one point, the Navajo thanked Ford by giving him a ceremonial deer hide with its tail and legs still attached. During working hours, the atmosphere on the set of the Searchers was serious. John Ford was especially focused, as if more was at stake. He would wait for hours for the perfect light to unfold, then quickly, Roll camera. Big action. Yeah, a dollar. Ford tried to influence the mood during scenes by using live music, something he did often on sets. He'd met an accordion player named Danny Borzegui on the 1924 Silent Western the Iron Horse, and he hired him for the next 40 years. Actress Pippa Scott says Ford would have Borsagi play during a scene to make the actors emotional. He let Borzegu play all kinds of music that he thought was emotionally correct for the moment, which profoundly affected the actors. I think it also affected everybody else around. So there was this huge group effort to get exactly right, what the feeling of the moment should be. It was very interesting. And then everybody had the loop after because the music played straight through the scene. I'd never seen that before. This may sound inefficient, having to loop the lines later, but to Ford, it was worth it. The emotions had to be both seen and felt. If it took live music to make that happen, so be it. All of Ford's creative decisions to shoot on location in VistaVision and Technicolor. To shoot at dusk when the light was just right and maybe even a little of old Fats magic. Together they created a fully romanticized portrait of the American West. Monument Valley is a real place, but it's also an American myth. And John Ford is the one who mythologized Monument Valley. John Ford was deeply obsessed with America. And I think he made Monument Valley into America. It was America for him. For audiences in 1956, watching the Searchers would have likely confirmed that the American west was ours to conquer. That a frontier spirit, despite the hardship, was America's destiny. In this way, the Searchers is part of the American myth. But it turns out it's also part of the American nightmare. Coming up, John Ford's hero becomes stronger and darker. Everybody's afraid that when they find her, that Ethan will find her first. And that Ethan will kill her. Living with Comanches ain't being alive better. She's alive and living with Comanches and her brains bashed out. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this. Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing? Investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk free trial@greenlight.com Spotify. Greenlight.com Spotify hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. It's so I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea. For the commercial, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required. New customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com on paper, Ethan Edwards looks heroic. An uncle searching for his kidnapped niece. But this is a different John Wayne than we've seen in the past. This isn't the Ringo Kid from Stagecoach. John Ford took everything strong and noble about his leading man and then twisted it. Good guys wore white hats, bad guys wore black hats. And the Searchers is not like that at all. This is TCM's senior director of original programming, Scott McGee. It is a full Technicolor film with shades of gray all over it. And this is embodied in the form of Ethan Edwards, as played by John Wayne. Ford uses Wayne as an icon in an ironic way. Maybe Lucy's dead, but if I hear that from you again, I'll fight you, Mr. Edwards. That'll be the day. Dobie Carey plays one of the men searching for Debbie with Ethan. Dobie says that on set, John Wayne began to almost inhabit Ethan Edwards. What do you want me to do? Draw your picture? Spell it out? Don't ever ask me. He was God's angry man and he never lost that. From the time of the first scene until the end of the picture. And even when we'd come in at night around dinner table and stuff, he was still almost in that role. Keep after the others. He just lived that role of Ethan Edwards. And he was magnificent. Best of it. I'll meet you on the far side. Move. For decades, John Ford had been creating a specific type of hero. These were men of honor, strong protectors who acted with a clear sense of right and wrong. But in the Searchers, John Wayne is a different hero. For him, honor means revenge. He's driven, yes, but driven by hate. And yet Ford still gives Ethan moments of vulnerability. There's also the tenderest moments in the Searchers. Namely that the moment between Ethan and his sister in law Martha, married to Ethan's brother. Welcome home, Ethan. In an early scene when Ethan comes home after many years away, his sister in law Martha picks up his coat and slowly brushes it with her hand. It's clear as a belle that there is history between Martha and Ethan, indeed a fiery, enduring love between them. Martha then walks out to give Ethan his coat. Ethan thanks her with a kiss on the forehead. But John Ford doesn't focus on Ethan and Martha in the foreground is Ward Bond, playing a visiting Texas Ranger. Ward Bond is just silently drinking his coffee while this moment between Ethan and Martha over a coat is going on in the background. No dialogue, no looks askance from Ward Bond. He's just looking straight ahead, choosing not to watch what's going on behind him because it's so loaded with meaning. That was Ford's genius of telling a story. You really see Ford's expertise as a silent film director. These moments that usually involve very little dialogue just say so much. While Ethan is out on patrol, his brother's home is raided by Comanches. This is when they kidnap Debbie and murder Ethan's family, including Martha, the woman Ethan calls clearly loves. He heads out to find Debbie and get his revenge. Ethan is a Civil War veteran who fought on the side of the Confederacy. And as this journey progresses, John Ford takes many opportunities to show us that not only is Ethan a devoted follower of the Confederacy, but he hates Native people. Why don't you finish the job? He even finds a dead Native man and shoots his eyes out. But what that Commence believes ain't got no eyes. He can't enter the spirit land, has to wander forever between the winds. And he makes all sorts of horrible statements about this man and about Native people in general. Cowboys and Indians had long been enemies on the big screen, and Ford was hardly the first filmmaker to fictionalize Native Americans. Indigenous people, essentially, they're just shadows. They're things to shoot at. They're moving targets. Adam Pierron is the director of the Indigenous Program at the Sundance Institute. It points to a larger kind of narrative within American culture of how Indigenous people are always placed as, like, an obstacle of something that needs to be moved or something that needs to be exterminated in order to tap into this idea of Manifest Destiny, that, you know, this land needs to be tamed by us and it's our birthright to obtain it. John Ford was a student of history. He was often reading books about both American and world history. But when it came to his storytelling, Ford bent history to his will. There are more than 500 distinct tribes in America. But on screen, John Ford flattened them into one homogenous group. Monument Valley is a Southwestern land, but all of his stories were about Plains tribes. And then, of course, he wasn't telling accurate stories about those tribes. And then he would hire Navajos to play Comanches. You visit with Monument Valley's friendly Navajos turned into bloodthirsty Comanche Indians by our makeup name. All of Ford's Indians dressed The same, talked the same, even lived in the same place. John Ford always got it wrong. The wigs that he chose to use, the costumes he chose to use just the way he had them behave in front of the camera. It was totally inaccurate. Ford did cast actual Native Americans and did so at a time when most filmmakers would cast any actor who looked vaguely ethnic to pass as Native. It is also true, though, that Ford only cast Navajos in limited roles. He would always have white guys playing lead natives. So even though he had like an army of Native people working on set, he never put these people in a role in which they spoke. Those were always parts reserved for white men. In what we called Red Face said it belonged to a captive child of Chief Scar. Scar? We ain't never heard of him, have we? The man in Red Face in the Searchers was Henry Brandon, a successful German character actor. He played Scar, the Comanche chief who kidnaps Debbie. Young Pippa Scott got kind hearted John Ford, but Henry Brandon, he got the mean and nasty John Ford. Some have speculated it was because during down times, Brandon would sport bikini bottoms and tan himself in the desert, all in an effort to look more Native for his scenes. Brandon didn't like Ford much either, but he was committed. TCM's Scott McGee says Ford wanted Brandon's character, again, the Comanche Chief Scar, to have his own story, to be more than just a caricature. Scar is not depicted as this bloodthirsty savage. He's depicted as a man who has a family, he takes care of his tribe. He's far more similar to Ethan Edwards than he really is to anybody else. You, big shoulders, you speak pretty good American for a Commanch. Someone teach you. The only person that can really see eye to eye with Ethan Edwards is Scar. They are two halves of the same coin. You speak good Comanche, someone teach you one is not good and one is not evil. They're both equally complex and anti heroic in their own right. And that's the challenge with the Searchers. You can't take it at face value. Scar appears to be the villain, but he also seems a lot like Ethan Edwards. Even on Native representation, says Liza Black John Ford defies easy explanations. If we look at all of the movies he made that included Native people, he's not saying the same thing repeatedly. He's saying very, very different things. And sometimes those things contradict each other. And then when you look at his interviews with him, the picture just becomes more complex because he sort of refused to be interviewed. What element about the Western Appealed to you, I would know. What a perplexity, perplexing man, and what a perplexing set of films he has left us with. Ethan Edwards's hatred toward Native Americans slowly seeps into his feelings about Debbie, his own niece, as he searches, the years pass, and we begin to realize that though Ethan continues looking for Debbie, he doesn't plan to save her. But Debbie's your blood kin. Not no more, she ain't. She's been living with a buck, she's not. That's your dirty mouth. Everybody's afraid that when they find her that Ethan will find her first and that Ethan will kill her. That's how obvious Ethan's racism is in the film. The threat that Ethan is going to kill Debbie because she's been living as a Comanche and sleeping with a Native man. That threat builds and builds until the climax of the movie, a scene that's been discussed and debated for decades. Ethan Edwards finds his niece, played by Natalie Wood. He chases her down until she's trapped in a cave. His anger appears to be overtaking him. No Ethan. No. Ethan Edwards, at long last is about to take Natalie Wood in his arms and by all appearances, just strangle her to death right there. That seems to be the move film critics scout Tafoya. He lifts her in the air and then he brings her back down in one fell swoop. And just like that, let's go home, Debbie. When he finds her, Ethan does not kill her. He saves her. So there's a contradiction in the Searchers. Why does Ethan save her? After showing us over and over again that Ethan is the racist hero, why does he save her? That doesn't absolve him. Certainly it doesn't. You know, we just watched him be very hard company for two hours. It's hard. A lot of that movie is really, really difficult, but it's just so beguiling in its ugliness, in the things that it winds up saying accidentally and purposefully. It's a film of great ambiguity, which is just not something that Ford did all that often. Ethan Edwards was wrong the entire time, and his last act is admitting it. His last act was admitting it. But as we'll see, Ethan Edwards does not get redemption. Over the years, John Wayne has been asked about Ethan's racism, about the vengeance that drove him. Sometimes he'd say things that sound very much like John Wayne. Well, my dad told me if I got in a fight to win the goddamn thing. Mostly, though, he was evasive. Wayne did give a more detailed answer in a 1971 interview when asked about how Native people were depicted on screen. I think we usually show them quite noble on the screen. I know the terrible thing that we did was to put them on reservations. That takes a man's human dignity away from him, takes his desire to better himself away from him. That's what they want to do with that cradle to grade socialism. And they'll have our whole country like that if we keep paying all our taxes for these minorities that you're provoking. Unlike John Ford, John Wayne was not one to hold back his political opinions. Coming up with one shot, John Ford creates an image that will be imitated for decades to come. I keep seeing that all the time. Now everybody's stealing that shot. You know, I see it in Yellowstone twice a week. Amazon One Medical presents Painful Thoughts. I've been on hold to make a doctor's appointment for 23 minutes now. The automated voice has told me 47 times that my call is very important to them. Hmm. I'm starting to think that they don't think my call is important at all. With Amazon One Medical 24. 7 Virtual Care, you'll get help fast without having to remain on the line to make an appointment. Amazon One Medical Healthcare just got less painful. This episode brought to you by MGM plus from executive producer Stephen King and an executive producer of Fraud comes the Institute, a chilling new original series from mgm. Kidnapped and trapped in a sinister facility, gifted teen Luke Ellis must join other children to fight for their survival. Starring Emmy Award winner Mary Louise Parker, Ben Barnes, and introducing Joe Freeman. The institute, premiering July 13 on MGM. The final shot of the Searchers is iconic. It's one of the most famous images in film history, and it wasn't even in the script. Ford thought of the shot on location when he shared the idea with his cinematographer, Wynton Hoak. Hoak thought to himself, how corny can you get? Thankfully, Hoke carried out Ford's vision. A man will serve church, his heart and soul. Ethan rides up to the front porch of a neighboring ranch. He's carrying his niece Debbie, who he's just rescued. She's welcomed to the ranch and brought inside. We watch from inside the house as everyone else follows her in. Everyone except Ethan. He remains outside, framed in a dark doorway, Monument Valley spread out behind him while a mournful song plays. Ethan then turns slowly walks away and the door closes. John Wayne had a terrible hangover the afternoon they shot that final scene. Olive Carey plays one of the neighbors who's on the porch to welcome Debbie home. Olive Says everyone felt the power of what they were shooting. I remember getting very emotionally because Danny was there playing the guardian. It doesn't make any difference what he played. It was always the mood type thing, you know, just right. And I was all teary and, God, when you see him coming, you see Duke coming with the girl. Olive's husband, the actor Harry Carey, had died a few years before this and John Wayne had admired him greatly. Harry Carey always wore a good hat, good pair of boots and what he wore in between didn't matter too much. And I loved him because I'd known him for years. And I was a young man and he was an older man. In that closing scene, Olive walked through the doorway. Everyone did but Wayne. Once inside, Olive turned back to watch John Wayne finish the scene. Jack had a scene that just included a dark doorway. And I was outside and they came in. It was just me and the door, the wind blowing. I thought of Harry Carey and he had a stance which was something to that effect where he put his left hand on his right arm and he did this incessantly in pictures. Ollie looked around at me and I just took the pose and just the tears poured out of her eyes. And it was a lovely dramatic moment in my life and I'm sure in her. John Wayne then turned around and walked off into the desert alone. You know that famous closing shot of the Searchers where the door closes and it's perfectly framed? That's John Ford's grandson, Dan Ford. Ethan Edwards is riding away and you see the door frame and the door closes and it shows the end. I keep seeing that all the time now. You know, I mean, they keep. Everybody's stealing that shot. You know, I see it in Yellowstone twice a week. Dan Ford says his grandfather made movies about real people. Men who were often difficult but were also products of their time. Men like John Ford himself. Let's face it, Ford made pictures for men. You know, I mean, he didn't make women's films. He made men's films because that was part of the times. It wasn't like today, you know. I mean, in the 30s, 40s and 50s, you know, they're not like eunuchs of today. That was just the times, you know, John Ford was certainly a product of the times he lived in. That's apparent on the screen. For Ford and Wayne, the Searchers were. Would become the pinnacle of their partnership. One that started back in 1939 in Monument Valley with Stagecoach. Director Martin Scorsese says together they created a specific vision of frontier America. Scorsese described it to PBS in 2006. In their work together, in their films, from Stagecoach on, you get a sense of American history. You may not agree with some of the takes they have on it, you know, but you can at least see where that impulse was and how people genuinely believed in it, in creating a new world. But the beauty of it, too, is that as they grew older, Ford was able to utilize the instrument of the actor. From Stagecoach to Ethan Edwards, you see the progression of the country in a way, brighter to the darker or more realistic, let's say. Don't call me uncle. I ain't your uncle. Yes, sir. No need to call me sir either. Ethan was cognizant of this racism. But Ethan doesn't really change TCM's Scott McGee. And you realize at the end of the film, in the famous closing shot, he understands that progress is moving on, that the country is moving on, hopefully from this racist past, from this hate and fear of the other. And so he must turn and wander forever between the spirit winds. He's a wanderer. He has no home anymore. Biographer Scott Iman says that in the Searchers, Ford put parts of himself into the character. I think Ethan is kind of an idealized projection of Ford's own damaged psyche. Ethan doesn't have a scene where he talks about why he's like this. Sure, I was here. Ethan just is, you want to quit, Ethan? That'll be that day. Ethan doesn't explain himself. You accept him the way you accept a hurricane or a terrible thunderstorm. And maybe, maybe that's a projection of Ford on some level of the way Ford lived his life. He didn't explain himself either. He didn't explain the alcoholism. He didn't explain the terrible, terrible psychological tension he's obviously under on every film set. He just is. And you accepted him or you rejected him. But if you accepted him, you had to take it all. You couldn't pick and choose. You couldn't pick and choose with John Ford any more than you could pick and choose with Ethan Edwards in the Searchers. More than in any of his other films, John Ford gave us a slice of humanity at its most complicated. Ethan Edwards, a racist hero, broken, lonely, but also courageous. Courageous and relentless at times, even noble. Roughly 40 years into his career as a filmmaker, the Searchers is a more honest rendering of John Ford himself of human behavior. And in the End of the History of America, John Ford's idea of America became the idea of America. John Ford is Walt Whitman. John Ford is Thomas Edison. John Ford is John Ford Is American Life. Next week on our season finale, John Ford takes a hard look at his legacy and begins to make amends. Even a dog can go where he likes, but not a Cheyenne. I'm wondering, is Cheyenne Autumn the apology for the Searchers? With the last stage of his career upon him, Ford goes out swinging and went into Pappy's room. He rose out of his chair and pow. That was as bad as it can be. He always had a passion and I guess he thought perhaps I could be a patsy. And I finally had it. That's all coming up on the plot thickens. Angela Caron is our director of podcasts. Story editor is Karen Duffin. Jaco Friedman is our senior producer. Script writing by Yaakov Friedman, Maya Croft and James Sheridan, who also fact checked every episode for us. Audio editing and sound design by Brandon Arnold, James Kim and Mike Vulgaris. Mixing by Glenn Matullo research by Matt Goldberg Production support from Liz Winter, Allison Fire, Matthew Ownby, Julie Bettone, Emma Morris, Susan B. Sack, Dorie Stegman and Phil Richards. Thanks to our legal team, Jon Renau and Kristin Hassell, and to the talents of TCM staffers Taryn Jacobs, Katie Daniels, David Byrne, Diana Bosch, Caroline Wigmore, Michelle Height, Stephanie Thames, and to our resident ford scholar, Scott McGee. Our executive producer is Charlie Tavish. Special thanks to Dan Ford for sharing his family archive with us and to the helpful team at Indy Indiana University's Lilly Library. Special thanks to Christina Jensen from the Degolier Library at Southern Methodist University. From novel, thanks to producer Philippa Goodrich, story editor Veronica Simmons, researcher Valeria Rocca, assistant producer Nadia Medi, production managers Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolf, executive producer Max o' Brien and creative director Willard Fox. Special thanks to Tony Macklin for his interview with John Wayne. Thomas Avery of Tune Welders composed our theme music. I'm your host, Ben Mankiewicz. Thanks for listening. See you next.