Four-Star Films : ‘The Searchers’
No movie more influenced young American directors in the ‘70s than John Ford’s controversial masterpiece about adventurer-mercenary Ethan Edwards, played by John Wayne. On the surface the 1956 film is about Ethan’s five-year search for the Comanches who killed the woman he silently loved, his brother’s wife, and kidnaped her daughters. Like Scar, the chief he pursues, Ethan is an eternal outsider doomed to wander forever between the winds, and his odyssey is a ruthless, passionate microcosm of America’s bloody frontier story. Most critics now regard “The Searchers” as the greatest of all Westerns; some, however, consider it crudely racist (TNT Thursday at 5 p.m.).
Other four-star movies airing this week:
The Long Voyage Home / AMC, Thursday, 12:05 p.m.
Dead of Night / Bravo, Thursday, 3 p.m.
The 400 Blows / Bravo, Thursday, 6 and 11 p.m.
On the Waterfront / Showtime, Friday, 1 p.m.
Shadow of a Doubt / AMC, Friday, 2 and 8:10 p.m.
East of Eden / AMC, Friday, 4 and 10:30 p.m.
Only good movies
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