John Wayne Movie Review: ****The Searchers (1956)

 This is a very good movie, and the racism of the lead character spills out all over the movie.  I think this was the point.  Uncle Ethan Evans (John Wayne) has returned home three years after the Civil War ended.  He is caught up in rescuing his nieces who are taken by Comanche.  Their brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter) goes with him but he is not a blood brother, but adopted and has Cherokee blood, which Uncle Ethan doesn't let him forget it.  Pawley has a girlfriend, Laurie (Vera Miles).  Early on they find the older sister murdered.  However the search for Deborah (Natalie Wood and Lana Wood), the younger sister goes on for many years.  Pawley is worried Uncle Evan will kill her as she has been amongst the Indians too long and will be an Indian.  The learn Cicatriz, or Scar (Henry Brandon) has her, but make little progress in finding him.  The first time they come upon Debbie Uncle Ethan does want to kill her, and Pawley intervenes.  However the second time there is a major operation and Cicatriz is killed.  However when Uncle Evan gets to the niece, now about 15 he says lets go home, and it is both he and the niece going home as Uncle Ethan lets go of some of his hate.  

The party would come home from time to time.  On one of these occasions they enter the wedding of Laurie and Charlie McCorrey (Ken Curtis, later Festus).  Laurie had grown tired of waiting and McCorrey had worn her down.  McCorrey and Pawley fight, and there is no wedding.  It is after this fight we hear that Cicatriz is in the area.  Another interesting character is Moss Harper (Hank Worden).  People thinks he is crazy, but it is he who was able to discover the whereabouts of Cicatriz.  Sisters Natalie Wood and Lana Wood portray Debbie, Lana the young Debbie and Natalie the older Debbie.  

I enjoyed this movie.  You have to remember Uncle Ethan's racism is his character form seeing death in the Civil War and fighting against the Native Americans.  

Movie Review: Splendor in the Grass

This is a movie of thwarted love, which leads to a two-year stay in a mental institution for Dee Dee (Natalie Wood) and a life settling for for Bud (Warren Beatty).  The are from rural Kansas.  Bud's father (Pat Hingle) is the money behind the town.  When these two were high school lovebirds, there was too much going against the relationship.   Bud always wanted more in terms of sex, but Dee Dee always resisted based on her teachings at home from her mother (Audrey Christie).  Her father was supportive (Fred Stewart) but also in the back ground as they struggle  to get ahead.  They do finally make a killing in the stock market.  On the other hand, Bud's father is dead set against the relationship.  Bud is going to Yale no matter what happens.  He already destroyed the hopes of his daughter Ginny (Barbara Loden) who turns out bad as a result.  Bud's father manages to separate the lovers, and as a result Dee Dee becomes more and more distraught.  Finally at her graduation dance, she is with another boy at the kissing spot, gets away form him and is determined to kill herself going over some water falls there.  Her father sells stock to support her in a mental institution in Kansas.  She is there for two years.  She does come out of her melancholy, and befriends another man there who is studying to be a doctor.  He had had a break down cutting into a cadaver.  Before Dee Dee leaves the hospital he has proposed to her by letter, after he does recover and begins his medical practice.  Bud's father becomes one of those who jumps in New York, after arranging for his son to meet a girl who looks like Dee Dee.  After being released from the hospital, Dee Dee discovers she cannot go with Bud, he is married; she is going to marry the doctor.
Wood does an excellent job acting.  The quiver in her lip when confronted by a school teacher is perfect.  You can see the emotion in her face, and her lead up to the breakdown is well done.  She was nominated for an Academy Award.
There is some brief nudity, as Dee Dee's mother confronts her while she is in the tub.  Dee Dee has an episode as a result, screaming and ending up on the bed.  The movie has a good point in that, sometimes what happens to us does not carry into adulthood.  That is the point behind the poem the use,
 Splendour in the Grass

 What though the radiance
 which was once so bright
 Be now for ever taken from my sight,
 Though nothing can bring back the hour
 Of splendour in the grass,
 of glory in the flower,
 We will grieve not, rather find
 Strength in what remains behind;
 In the primal sympathy
 Which having been must ever be;
 In the soothing thoughts that spring
 Out of human suffering;
 In the faith that looks through death,
 In years that bring the philosophic mind.

-- William Wordsworth

Christmas Movie Review: ****Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

 This movie presents a young single mother, Doris Walker (Maureen O' Hara)and her daughter, Susan Walker (Natalie Wood) as a mother and daughter who have the attitude of only believing in things that are real, and not in Santa Claus.  It also has a Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) and a lawyer, Fred Gailey (John Payne) who defends Kris when he is being sent to an insane asylum because he insists that he is Santa Claus.  Kris Kingle is a very good Santa, and insists  it is more important for the children to be happy, than any one store to get sales.  There is a company psychiatrist at Macy's who leads the anti Santa Claus movement.  That leads them into conflict.  The case ends up in court, and there is a cute scene with the son of the District Attorney who is prosecuting the case.  The son points out his father told him who Santa Claus is.  His father is try to convince the judge to commit Kris Kringle to an asylum.  The judge is seeking some reason to accept him, and is given this when the U.S. Postal Service delivers letters to him.  Of course Doris had suggested this.  This movie talks about faith, and what faith is.  Doris and her daughter find faith in the end.  I really enjoyed Natalie Wood, and her emotions and expressions.  It is interesting the commercialization of Christmas was a theme over sixty years ago.  This movie is a classic.