(3 of 3)
The lapses in logic and the general air of incoherence are only minor imperfections in a film as carefully contrived as a matchstick castle. The Searchers is rousingly played by what Hollywood calls the "John Ford Stock Company"—a group made up of Wayne, Harry Carey Jr., Ward Bond, a half-dozen bit players, seven stunt men who are repeatedly shot off horses, and many of the same Navajo Indians who have been losing battles in John Ford pictures since 1938. By now, all of them perform with practiced ease: the women know just where to stand on the cabin porch as they peer off anxiously into the haze and mesa-filled distances; the men automatically fall into line for a barn dance or a posse. In fact, they may be getting too practiced and familiar. Even John Wayne seems to have done it once too often as he makes his standardized, end-of-film departure into the sunset.