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Ford's Purest Ford Film

Thomas Plotkin | West Hartford CT, United States | 08/08/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nothing happens and everything happens in this tiny Western by John Ford; a group of Mormons, persecuted hither and yon, have lit out west to find the promised land; a couple of rootless cowboys join them as trail bosses. On their pilgrimage through the desert, they bond with kindred outcasts, such as friendly Indians and some similarly persecuted (loose morals, you know) theater folk, with the serpent in the garden finally rearing its head when they are hijacked by one of Ford's villainous all-male families, the Cleggs, fugitives from a bloody train robbery.

This is such a great film, Ford always cited it as his favorite, along with The Sun Shines Bright (Ford of course often denied having made his own films, or claimed he couldn't remember them when interviewers asked him about them, so such self-reference was rare coming from the cantankerous old coot). Made in conditions of complete independence, with no stars, one has the sense that here is the Fordian universe at its purest: a minimal narrative, with next-to-no action, just a collection of privileged moments among his beloved community of outcasts (here Mormons, uncorrupted by civilization because the pilgrims have yet to cease their desert wanderings, the ideal is still real), and stunningly gorgeous black and white studies of the human figure almost, but not quite, lost in the splendors of the landscape of Monument Valley. Ex-rodeo star Ben Johnson brings a tremendous amount of authenticity to his cowboy hero, the Ford stock company is in full effect, and Ford's hommages to silent cinema are overt -- such as the Clegg patriarch firing his gun at the audience recalls The Great Train Robbery (as does the whole opening sequence), the casting of Harry Carey Jr as the second lead, whose dad was Ford's silent era star.

Favorite moment: the celebratory dance between Mormons and friendly Indians. Second favorite -- Ward Bond's Mormon elder heroically failing to keep his penchant for blasphemous oaths in check. Third favorite -- Ben Johnson's wordless self-disgust after the thoroughly justifiable gunning down of a bad guy. Fourth favorite -- the endless single-take of Johnson and Carey engaging in an oblique three-cushion dialog as to whether to join the Mormon wagon train while sitting on a fence. These scenes, like every frame of the film, convey with huge power the sum total of Ford's aesthetic and personality every bit as well as the entire running time of his recognized classics like The Searchers, My Darling Clementine, or Fort Apache. A little-heralded, great, great film.

This is a gentle, sweet, lovable film about America's promises and pitfalls that while thoroughly grown up, you should be sure to show it to your kids. It is also, like most of Ford's films, as arty, abstractly formalist and aestheticized as anything by the European masters (who revered Ford)."