Thomas Butt is a senior writer at Collider who focuses on classic movies.
The Big Picture It's only fair that the icon of the Western genre and American male heroism of classic Hollywood, John Wayne, influenced the career and work of his successor as the preeminent movie star of the Old West, Clint Eastwood. Without Wayne, the valiant, all-American cowboy and soldier who defined on-screen masculinity for generations, Eastwood could never have evolved the iconography of Western folklore.
Release Date May 26, 1956 Director John Ford Cast John Wayne , Jeffrey Hunter , Vera Miles , Ward Bond , Natalie Wood Runtime 119 minutes 'Red River' and 'The Searchers' Bring Out the Best in John Wayne John Wayne's most frequent collaborators behind the camera, particularly in the Western genre, were Howard Hawks and John Ford, with the latter widely considered the author of modern Western iconography and storytelling.
Clint Eastwood Praised John Wayne's Performances in 'Red River' and 'The Searchers' Close Clint Eastwood sat down with Paul Schrader, whose script for Taxi Driver was indebted to The Searchers, at an event conducted by the Director's Guild of America to commemorate Ford's Stagecoach, ground zero for the modern Western. Sporting his iconic cowboy hat, fringe shirt, and a bandanna around his neck, the classic 1939 Western introduced audiences to Wayne.
For Eastwood, it was The Searchers that cemented Wayne as a special screen performer and not just a viable movie star. Among all of Wayne's roles, Ethan Edwards shares the most DNA with Eastwood's Western protagonists. A common thread between Eastwood's characters, The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy and the nameless outlaws in High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider, is ambiguity. They operate under a unique code that straddles between good and evil.
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