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				John Wayne
				Jeffrey Hunter
				Natalie Wood
				Vera Miles
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				average rating at martytown: 5.00

Often considered John Ford's masterpiece, The Searchers is also clearly one of the greatest Westerns ever made. The story concerns the many years of searching for Wayne's young niece (Natalie Wood) who was kidnapped as a young child by the Comanches. By the time they find her, she has been with the Comanches for many years, grown into a young woman, and is basically the squaw of their leader. To Wayne, this presents a dilemma and one of the conflicts to resolve in the film.

Many modern critics have described Wayne's character as "racist" in his attitude toward the Indians, but that is the modern liberals' bias: they see the story through their own prism. It's obvious in the movie why Wayne hates Indians, and it's an emotion that is easy to understand given the context of history. While many of John Ford's earlier films present "black and white" situations, and to be sure this film has shades of gray, there is no doubt that Wayne's character is a good old fashioned hero.
— Marty