John Ford’s The Searchers
An evening pause: A very detailed look at some of the behind-the-scenes history for one of John Ford’s best westerns, The Searchers (1956), starring John Wayne.
This isn’t my favorite Ford film. I prefer My Darling Clementine (1946). Nonetheless, The Searchers is still one of the best, and this short documentary will also give you a feel for the actual American culture of the time, a culture that cared about the truth and tried to treat people with respect.
If you want to watch but save time, you can set the playing speed at 2X normal and understand everything completely.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors. The ebook can be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner. Note that the price for the ebook, $3.99, goes up to $5.99 on September 1, 2022.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Great film of course. My favorite Ford film is a tie:
The Informer (1935).
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
My favorite Ford/Wayne film is Donovan’s Reef.
When I saw this as a teenager (*not* in theaters; it came out well before I was born), I thought it was the ‘darkest’ Wayne film I’d seen. And while I own a copy, in some ways this is a difficult film to watch, despite it’s quality. Hard to go wrong with John Ford and The Duke.