The Searchers
FILM 1.50PM, BBC2
John Wayne plays Nathan Edwards, the Civil War veteran who goes on a mammoth five-year quest to find his niece (Natalie Wood) who’s been kidnapped by Comanches. If he finds her, or so he swears, he’s going to kill her, to save her from the shame of having been ‘the leavings of a Comanche buck’. Edwards is a tough, unlikeable character but a determined and even heroic one too. Of the 14 films that director John Ford and star John Wayne made together, this is one of the most problematical but also one of the best. ★★★★★ SM