The Searchers

"Our turnin' back don't mean nothin', not in the long run. She's alive, she's safe for a while. They'll keep her and raise her as one of their own til, until she's of an age to... Injun will chase a thing till he thinks he's chased it enough. Then, he quits. Same way when he runs. Seems like he never learns there's such a thing as a critter that'll just keep comin' on. So we'll find 'em in the end, I promise you. We'll find 'em. Just as sure as a turnin' of the earth."

"I figure a man's only good for one oath at a time. I gave mine to the Confederate States of America."

"Well, Reverend, that tears it! From now on, you stay out of this. All of ya. I don't want you with me. I don't need ya for what I got to do."

"Let's go home, Debbie."

"[repeated line] That'll be the day !"

"It just so happens we be Texicans. Texican is nothin' but a human man way out on a limb, this year and next. Maybe for a hundred more. But I don't think it'll be forever. Some day, this country's gonna be a fine good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come."

"Another speaker, Amanda Milius, is the daughter of John Milius, who was the screenwriter for the first two Dirty Harry films and Apocalypse Now. She grew up in L.A. and wound up in the Trump administration. She argued that America needs to get back to making self-confident movies like The Searchers, the 1956 John Ford Western. This was an unapologetic movie, she asserted, about how Americans tamed the West and how Christian values got brought to “savage, undeveloped land.” This is about as dumb a reading of The Searchers as it’s possible to imagine. The movie is actually the modern analogue to the Oresteia, by Aeschylus. The complex lead figure, played by John Wayne, is rendered barbaric and racist while fighting on behalf of westward pioneers. By the end, he is unfit to live in civilized society. But we don’t exactly live in an age that acknowledges nuance. Milius distorts the movie into a brave manifesto of anti-woke truths—and that sort of distortion has a lot of buyers among this crowd."

"He had to find her... he had to find her..."

"The Biggest, Roughest, Toughest ...and Most Beautiful Picture Ever Made!"

"John Wayne - Ethan Edwards"

"Jeffrey Hunter - Martin Pawley"

"Vera Miles - Laurie Jorgensen"

"Ward Bond - Reverend Clayton"

"Natalie Wood - Debbie Edwards (older)"