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* OhCrap: Lucy Edwards Screams her head off when she realizes the Comanche are about to attack.
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* OhCrap: Lucy Edwards Screams screams her head off when she realizes the Comanche are about to attack.
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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Debbie is safe and Martin and Laurie are presumed to live HappilyEverAfter, but according to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Debbie is safe and Martin and Laurie are presumed to live HappilyEverAfter, but according to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.start over.]]
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one page quote only, other moved to Quotes.The Searchers
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->''"Do you know what Ethan will do if he has a chance? He'll put a bullet in her brain. And I tell you Martha would want him to."''
-->-- '''Laurie Jorgenson'''
''The Searchers'' is a 1956 {{Western}} film directed by JohnFord, starring JohnWayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and [[SceneryPorn Monument Valley, Utah]]. It's widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever.
Three years after the end of the AmericanCivilWar, Ethan Edwards (Wayne) rides back to his brother's family homestead in Texas. Ethan is wearing the jacket of a Confederate, and he's reticent about what he did after war, or where he obtained the money he's carrying. He intends to settle down, and to exchange [[{{Subtext}} long]] [[StarCrossedLovers glances]] with his sister-in-law Martha (Dorothy Jordan), but fate has other plans in store for him.
-->-- '''Laurie Jorgenson'''
''The Searchers'' is a 1956 {{Western}} film directed by JohnFord, starring JohnWayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and [[SceneryPorn Monument Valley, Utah]]. It's widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever.
Three years after the end of the AmericanCivilWar, Ethan Edwards (Wayne) rides back to his brother's family homestead in Texas. Ethan is wearing the jacket of a Confederate, and he's reticent about what he did after war, or where he obtained the money he's carrying. He intends to settle down, and to exchange [[{{Subtext}} long]] [[StarCrossedLovers glances]] with his sister-in-law Martha (Dorothy Jordan), but fate has other plans in store for him.
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-->-- '''Laurie Jorgenson'''
Three years after the end of
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* SignatureItemClue: Ethan gives Debbie his medal at the beginning and years later sees it around the neck of the man believed to have kidnapped her. Debbie reappears soon afterward.
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* TragicBigot: While Ethan Edwards is basically a Jerkass to everyone, he gains a little sympathy over his hatred of Comanches since a group of them killed his family and took his niece to live as one of them.
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* TragicBigot: While Ethan Edwards is basically a Jerkass {{Jerkass}} to everyone, he gains a little sympathy over his hatred of Comanches since a group of them killed his family and took his niece to live as one of them.
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* TragicBigot: While Ethan Edwards is basically a Jerkass to everyone, he gains a little sympathy over his hatred of Comanches since a group of them killed his family and took his niece to live as one of them.
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** And when Ethan and Martin stop off at a Mexican cantina while looking for Scar's party, there is a rather....vivacious Mexican senorita who wildly clacks her castanets in Martin's face while he's trying to eat (though, to be fair, she's more of an [[AbhorrentAdmirer Annoying Admirer]]).
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** And when Ethan and Martin stop off at a Mexican cantina while looking for Scar's party, there is a rather....vivacious Mexican senorita who wildly clacks her castanets in Martin's face while he's trying to eat (though, to be fair, she's more of an [[AbhorrentAdmirer [[DownplayedTrope Annoying Admirer]]).
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* TheFool: Mose Harper. Indeed, some film critics describe him as a kind of archetypical "holy fool".
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* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Look. Her real name is Wild Ghost Flying in the Night Sky.
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* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Look. Her real name is Wild Ghost Goose Flying in the Night Sky.
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* [[CaliforniaDoubling Arizona Doubling]]: Monument Valley is not in Texas! But who cares, it's Monument Valley!
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* [[CaliforniaDoubling Utah Doubling]]: Monument Valley is not in Texas! But who cares, it's Monument Valley!
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* HeyItsThatGuy!: Some may know Martin Pawley better as [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Captain Christopher Pike]].
--->'''[[FamilyGuy Stewie]]:''' Good evening. I am playing the role of Jesus, a man once portrayed on the big screen by Jeffrey Hunter. You may remember him as the actor who was replaced by William Shatner on ''Star Trek''. Apparently Mr. Hunter was good enough to die for our sins, but not quite up to the task of seducing green women.
** Laurel & Hardy fans will know Chief Scar as the villainous Barnaby.
** And as usual more than half the cast each appeared in ''several'' other JohnFord films.
--->'''[[FamilyGuy Stewie]]:''' Good evening. I am playing the role of Jesus, a man once portrayed on the big screen by Jeffrey Hunter. You may remember him as the actor who was replaced by William Shatner on ''Star Trek''. Apparently Mr. Hunter was good enough to die for our sins, but not quite up to the task of seducing green women.
** Laurel & Hardy fans will know Chief Scar as the villainous Barnaby.
** And as usual more than half the cast each appeared in ''several'' other JohnFord films.
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* DarkerAndEdgier: Arguably this is Wayne's bleakest role: it's easy to forget Edwards is a bitter, angry racist and borderline sociopath.
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This film is also a subversion of JohnWayne's usual persona: rather than a gruff but ultimately kind-hearted cowboy, Ethan Edwards is a conflicted AntiHero with a genuinely nasty streak, a man who desecrates Comanche corpses on the off-chance that it will hurt them in the afterlife, and who enjoys firing on retreating enemies a little too much. Between unfulfilled love and fighting on the losing side of the Civil War, he's become so jaded that he seeks solace in abandoning his humanity -- but finds in the end that he can't do it. Wayne's performance as this character is widely considered the best of his career.
The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name [[MartinScorsese any]] [[Creator/StevenSpielberg famous]] [[GeorgeLucas director]] born in 1940s (not that there [[JossWhedon aren't]] [[QuentinTarantino others]]), they almost certainly have an {{Homage}} to this film somewhere in one (if not more) of theirs.
The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name [[MartinScorsese any]] [[Creator/StevenSpielberg famous]] [[GeorgeLucas director]] born in 1940s (not that there [[JossWhedon aren't]] [[QuentinTarantino others]]), they almost certainly have an {{Homage}} to this film somewhere in one (if not more) of theirs.
to:
This film is also a subversion of JohnWayne's Creator/JohnWayne's usual persona: rather than a gruff but ultimately kind-hearted cowboy, Ethan Edwards is a conflicted AntiHero with a genuinely nasty streak, a man who desecrates Comanche corpses on the off-chance that it will hurt them in the afterlife, and who enjoys firing on retreating enemies a little too much. Between unfulfilled love and fighting on the losing side of the Civil War, he's become so jaded that he seeks solace in abandoning his humanity -- but finds in the end that he can't do it. Wayne's performance as this character is widely considered the best of his career.
The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name[[MartinScorsese [[Creator/MartinScorsese any]] [[Creator/StevenSpielberg famous]] [[GeorgeLucas [[Creator/GeorgeLucas director]] born in 1940s (not that there [[JossWhedon [[Creator/JossWhedon aren't]] [[QuentinTarantino [[Creator/QuentinTarantino others]]), they almost certainly have an {{Homage}} to this film somewhere in one (if not more) of theirs.
The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name
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* AntiHero: Ethan is intitally, or at least very close to a Type V. Mellows out to a Type IV or III.
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* UnscrupulousHero: Ethan is one of these. He seems quite burnt out by it at the end of the film, however.
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* BarredFromTheAfterlife: A group chasing an Comanche war party finds the grave of a dead Comanche. One man angrily smashes him with a rock but John Wayne pulls out his gun and shoots out the corpse's eyes. When asked by a Texas Ranger/Preacher what good that did, Wayne answers that by what the preacher believes, nothing, but the Indian's believe that if he has no eyes he can't enter the afterlife and just has to wander "between the winds".
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Quote + image - > image goes to the right
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* DoorClosesEnding: At the end a happy family reunion occurs inside a house, but Ethan realizes there is NoPlaceForMeThere and wanders off to the background desert. Ethan is left literally out of the picture as the door of the house closes and "The End" appears.
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rename
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* HalfBreed: Martin Pawley is 1/8th Cherokee. Ethan mocks him for this, but ultimately comes to regard him as a son regardless.
* MixedAncestry: Martin Pawley is 1/8th Cherokee. Ethan mocks him for this, but ultimately comes to regard him as a son regardless.
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----
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----
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* NoPlaceForMeThere: [[spoiler:[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woahas_W35A ending Ethan, at the end]], as he realizes he is no longer welcome with the family he saved]]
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* NoPlaceForMeThere: [[spoiler:[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woahas_W35A ending Ethan, Ethan at the end]], as he realizes he is no longer welcome with the family he saved]]
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* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Ethan hates indians, and he's not shy about expressing it.
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Correction, Ethan leaves due to his displacement, not just \"because\" as in the meaning of the trope
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* ButNowIMustGo: The iconic [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woahas_W35A ending]]. Ethan realizes he's displaced once his quest is concluded and makes a silent exit.
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* NoPlaceForMeThere: [[spoiler:Ethan, at the end, as he realizes he is no longer welcome with the family he saved]]
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* NoPlaceForMeThere: [[spoiler:Ethan, [[spoiler:[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woahas_W35A ending Ethan, at the end, end]], as he realizes he is no longer welcome with the family he saved]]
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* ButNowIMustGo: The iconic [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woahas_W35A ending]]. Ethan realizes he's displaced once his quest is concluded and makes a silent exit.
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''The Searchers'' is a 1956 {{Western}} film directed by JohnFord, starring JohnWayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and [[SceneryPorn Monument Valley, Utah]]. It's widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever.
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''The Searchers'' is a 1956 {{Western}} film directed by JohnFord, starring JohnWayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and [[SceneryPorn Monument Valley, Utah]]. It's widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever.
ever.
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When Ethan rides out with the Texas Rangers to apprehend some cattle rustlers, a Comanche war party attacks the homestead, kidnapping young Debbie (NatalieWood) and murdering the rest of the family. Ethan sets off in pursuit, accompanied by his nephew-by-adoption Martin Pawley (Hunter).
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When Ethan rides out with the Texas Rangers to apprehend some cattle rustlers, a Comanche war party attacks the homestead, kidnapping young Debbie (NatalieWood) and murdering the rest of the family. Ethan sets off in pursuit, accompanied by his nephew-by-adoption Martin Pawley (Hunter).
(Hunter).
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''The Searchers'' is proof that the [[{{Deconstruction}} Revisionist Western]] didn't begin with SergioLeone: This was one of the first films to examine the racism underpinning the frontier Indian conflicts.
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''The Searchers'' is proof that the [[{{Deconstruction}} Revisionist Western]] didn't begin with SergioLeone: This was one of the first films to examine the racism underpinning the frontier Indian conflicts.
conflicts.
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The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name [[MartinScorsese any]] [[StevenSpielberg famous]] [[GeorgeLucas director]] born in 1940s (not that there [[JossWhedon aren't]] [[QuentinTarantino others]]), they almost certainly have an {{Homage}} to this film somewhere in one (if not more) of theirs.
to:
The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name [[MartinScorsese any]] [[StevenSpielberg [[Creator/StevenSpielberg famous]] [[GeorgeLucas director]] born in 1940s (not that there [[JossWhedon aren't]] [[QuentinTarantino others]]), they almost certainly have an {{Homage}} to this film somewhere in one (if not more) of theirs.
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* AntiHero: Ethan is intitally, or at least very close to a Type V. Mellows out to a Type IV or III.
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* AntiHero: Ethan is intitally, or at least very close to a Type V. Mellows out to a Type IV or III.
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* [[DontCallMeSir Don't Call Me Sir]]: Or Uncle Ethan. Or Methusalah.
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* [[DontCallMeSir Don't Call Me Sir]]: DontCallMeSir: Or Uncle Ethan. Or Methusalah.
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* [[HeyItsThatGuy Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Some may know Martin Pawley better as [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Captain Christopher Pike]].
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* [[HeyItsThatGuy Hey, It's That Guy!]]: HeyItsThatGuy!: Some may know Martin Pawley better as [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Captain Christopher Pike]].
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* NobleBigot: Ethan is bigoted toward ''both'' Comanche's and Feds.
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* NobleBigot: Ethan is bigoted toward ''both'' Comanche's and Feds.
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* OhCrap: Lucy Edwards Screams her head off when she realizes the Comanche are about to attack.
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* OhCrap: Lucy Edwards Screams her head off when she realizes the Comanche are about to attack.
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* StandardSnippet: Some of the tunes that John Ford used in many of his films make a reappearance:
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* StandardSnippet: Some of the tunes that John Ford used in many of his films make a reappearance: reappearance:
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<<|{{Film}}|>>
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* [[HeyItsThatGuy Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Some may know Martin Pawley better as [[StarTrek Captain Christopher Pike]].
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* [[HeyItsThatGuy Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Some may know Martin Pawley better as [[StarTrek [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Captain Christopher Pike]].
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** Mocked in dialogue to hilarious effect.
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* BilingualBonus: Quite a bit, with both Comanche and Spanish. For instance, Marty at first does not realize that Chief Cicatriz = Chief Scar.
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* BilingualBonus: Quite a bit, with both Comanche and Spanish. For instance, Marty at first does not realize that Chief Cicatriz = Chief Scar. Scar.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Debbie is safe and Martin and Laurie are presumed to live HappilyEverAfter, but according to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Debbie is safe and Martin and Laurie are presumed to live HappilyEverAfter, but according to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Debbie is safe and Martin and Laurie are presumed to live HappilyEverAfter, but according to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
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* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:According to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
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* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:According BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Debbie is safe and Martin and Laurie are presumed to live HappilyEverAfter, but according to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
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* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: ''The Searchers'' is loosely based on the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped by a Comanche war party at the age of nine after they massacred her family's settlement. She spent the next 24 years living among the Comanche and almost completely forgot her previous life, marrying a Comanche chieftain and starting a family. She was "rescued" by a band of Texas Rangers at the age of 34, but refused to adjust to life in white society. She escaped and returned to the Comanches at least once, only to be "rescued" again before she fell into a state of depression and died of influenza in 1870.
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http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the-searchers-finalscene.jpg
->''"Injun will chase a thing until he thinks he's chased it enough, then he quits. Same way when he runs. Seems like he never learns there's such a thing as a critter that will just keep comin' on. So we'll find 'em in the end, I promise you. We'll find 'em. Just as sure as the turnin' of the Earth."''
-->-- '''Ethan Edwards'''
->''"Do you know what Ethan will do if he has a chance? He'll put a bullet in her brain. And I tell you Martha would want him to."''
-->-- '''Laurie Jorgenson'''
''The Searchers'' is a 1956 {{Western}} film directed by JohnFord, starring JohnWayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and [[SceneryPorn Monument Valley, Utah]]. It's widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever.
Three years after the end of the AmericanCivilWar, Ethan Edwards (Wayne) rides back to his brother's family homestead in Texas. Ethan is wearing the jacket of a Confederate, and he's reticent about what he did after war, or where he obtained the money he's carrying. He intends to settle down, and to exchange [[{{Subtext}} long]] [[StarCrossedLovers glances]] with his sister-in-law Martha (Dorothy Jordan), but fate has other plans in store for him.
When Ethan rides out with the Texas Rangers to apprehend some cattle rustlers, a Comanche war party attacks the homestead, kidnapping young Debbie (NatalieWood) and murdering the rest of the family. Ethan sets off in pursuit, accompanied by his nephew-by-adoption Martin Pawley (Hunter).
The search drags on for years. Martin decides that he wants to start going steady with his childhood friend Laurie Jorgenson (Vera Miles); naturally, the fact that he won't give up the search for his sister complicates the relationship. Meanwhile, Ethan and Martin find that they don't quite see eye-to-eye on the nature of their real mission: Martin wants to rescue his sister; Ethan wants to kill some Comanche. And as far as Ethan's concerned, if Debbie's been married to one of those "bucks", she's no better than a Comanche...
''The Searchers'' is proof that the [[{{Deconstruction}} Revisionist Western]] didn't begin with SergioLeone: This was one of the first films to examine the racism underpinning the frontier Indian conflicts.
This film is also a subversion of JohnWayne's usual persona: rather than a gruff but ultimately kind-hearted cowboy, Ethan Edwards is a conflicted AntiHero with a genuinely nasty streak, a man who desecrates Comanche corpses on the off-chance that it will hurt them in the afterlife, and who enjoys firing on retreating enemies a little too much. Between unfulfilled love and fighting on the losing side of the Civil War, he's become so jaded that he seeks solace in abandoning his humanity -- but finds in the end that he can't do it. Wayne's performance as this character is widely considered the best of his career.
The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name [[MartinScorsese any]] [[StevenSpielberg famous]] [[GeorgeLucas director]] born in 1940s (not that there [[JossWhedon aren't]] [[QuentinTarantino others]]), they almost certainly have an {{Homage}} to this film somewhere in one (if not more) of theirs.
----
!!This film provides examples of:
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Look. Just....Look.
** And when Ethan and Martin stop off at a Mexican cantina while looking for Scar's party, there is a rather....vivacious Mexican senorita who wildly clacks her castanets in Martin's face while he's trying to eat (though, to be fair, she's more of an [[AbhorrentAdmirer Annoying Admirer]]).
* AccidentalMarriage: Martin and Look.
* [[CaliforniaDoubling Arizona Doubling]]: Monument Valley is not in Texas! But who cares, it's Monument Valley!
* AntiHero: Ethan is intitally, or at least very close to a Type V. Mellows out to a Type IV or III.
* BilingualBonus: Quite a bit, with both Comanche and Spanish. For instance, Marty at first does not realize that Chief Cicatriz = Chief Scar.
* {{Bookends}}: The film [[IncrediblyLamePun opens and closes with a door]].
* CavalryOfficer: Pat Wayne as the green Lieutenant Greenhill.
* [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Knife]]: Lieutenant Greenhill's sabre.
* CatchPhrase: Ethan's "That'll be the day."
** With a dose of MemeticMutation: it directly inspired Buddy Holly's song of the same name, for example. This also happens to be the first song John, Paul and George of some British rock band you might have heard of ever recorded.
* CloudCuckoolander / TheFool: Mose Harper. Though it's hinted he might not be quite as out there as he [[ObfuscatingStupidity appears to be]].
* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: Poor, poor Look.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The racism endemic in white Texan society in the 1860s and 1870s, where someone being 1/8th Cherokee was still a big deal, is not airbrushed out - even Laurie, one of the most sympathetic characters of the movie, is affected by it.
* {{Determinator}}: Both Ethan and Martin.
* DeterminedHomesteadersWife: Mrs. Jorgensen, especially in her rousing speech of how this country (which her husband just blamed for the death of his son) will become a good place to live, even if it may take their bones in the ground to achieve it.
* [[DontCallMeSir Don't Call Me Sir]]: Or Uncle Ethan. Or Methusalah.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:According to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
* DueToTheDead: Ethan desecrates a Comanche corpse to drive home the point that he's not a nice guy.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Look. Her real name is Wild Ghost Flying in the Night Sky.
* EyeScream: Ethan shoots out the eyes of a Comanche corpse, just on the offchance that the Comanche religion is correct about people being unable to enter paradise without eyes.
* FakeNationality: Scar was played by Henry Brandon, a blue-eyed German.
** Although ''The Searchers'' was partly inspired by the [[TruthInTelevision real-life story of Cynthia Parker, who was abducted by Comanches in 1836, grew up among them and whose son Quanah was a feared war chief]] active around the time the film is set.
* FreudianExcuse: Chief Scar.
* GoodShepherd: Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton
* GoryDiscretionShot
* HalfBreed: Martin Pawley is 1/8th Cherokee. Ethan mocks him for this, but ultimately comes to regard him as a son regardless.
* [[HeyItsThatGuy Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Some may know Martin Pawley better as [[StarTrek Captain Christopher Pike]].
--->'''[[FamilyGuy Stewie]]:''' Good evening. I am playing the role of Jesus, a man once portrayed on the big screen by Jeffrey Hunter. You may remember him as the actor who was replaced by William Shatner on ''Star Trek''. Apparently Mr. Hunter was good enough to die for our sins, but not quite up to the task of seducing green women.
** Laurel & Hardy fans will know Chief Scar as the villainous Barnaby.
** And as usual more than half the cast each appeared in ''several'' other JohnFord films.
* IronicEcho: Early in the movie the dog barks a warning as the Comanche raiders sneak up on the Edwards family farm. Near the end, another dog barks out as the rangers close in on the Comanche camp, but Chief Scar does not heed the warning. There is also this:
--> '''Ethan Edwards:''' You speak pretty good American. Someone teach you?
--> ''(later)''
--> '''Scar:''' You speak good Comanche. Someone teach you?
* IWillFindYou
* IWillWaitForYou: Laurie Jorgensen does this for Marty. At first you can even say that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" - contrast her subdued goodbye to Martin when he first sets out after the funeral (they just shake hands) to her exuberant and (by 1870s standards) almost indecent welcome when he and Ethan first return to the Jorgensen homestead a couple of years later.
* {{Jerkass}} / JerkassFacade: Ethan is genuinely a Jerkass, but he can't quite abandon his humanity like he wants to.
* KickTheDog: When Ethan fires wildly into a buffalo herd, howling, "They won't feed any Comanche ''this'' winter!" Try not to cringe.
** Scar chucks a rock at a dog that won't shut up.
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Subverted repeatedly in the 'fist'fight between Marty and Charlie. Which begins with a cute ritual of laying down a piece of wood and spitting over it.
* LivingMacGuffin: Debbie.
* {{Motif}} / BookEnds: See the picture above. That particular blocking (the sun-drenched desert framed by the shadows of rocks or a building's interior) appears in the first and final scenes, and many times in between.
** Also [[spoiler: the way Ethan lifts Debbie into the air in their first scene together, echoed when he lifted her in the climactic/cathartic scene near the end]].
* MoodWhiplash: Especially in the 1950s it must have been quite jarring for the audience to laughing at the apparent comic-relief character Look to seeing her fear when Ethan and Marty put her under harsh questioning where Scar might be to her discovery as one of the victims of the cavalry massacre.
* MusicOfNote: The MaxSteiner score.
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: The scene with Martin in the bath and Laurie.
* NoPlaceForMeThere: [[spoiler:Ethan, at the end, as he realizes he is no longer welcome with the family he saved]]
* NobleBigot: Ethan is bigoted toward ''both'' Comanche's and Feds.
* NoodleIncident: Whatever happened to Ethan during the war.
* NotSoDifferent: Ethan and Scar.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Okay, so Mose Harper is already kind of a little....not there. But he pretends to be even ''crazier'' in order to escape from his Comanche captors, even eating grass like Nebuchadnezzar.
* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene : They stumble across some of this done by the Comanches early in the film as well as a random Indian woman killed by the cavalry later in the movie. The general point is that on both sides, some HumansAreBastards.
** Maybe this would be closer to WarIsHell.
*** The second scene foreshadows a similar one in ''Film/LittleBigMan'', featuring the same unit, the 7th Cavalry, and their regimental tune, "Garry Owen".
* OhCrap: Lucy Edwards Screams her head off when she realizes the Comanche are about to attack.
* RealLifeRelative: The actor playing Brad Jorgensen is the son of the actress who plays his mother. Pat Wayne appears in a scene with his father JohnWayne. Ken Curties (Charlie [=McCorry=]) was John Ford's son-in-law.
* SceneryPorn: Did we mention that this was filmed in Monument Valley?
* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Figueroa returning the money Ethan gave him after he realizes why Ethan wanted to speak to Scar, because he does not want blood money. Not that he didn't know from the get-go that they were planning to kill Scar, but because it appeared that he had unwittingly led the white men to their deaths. A little later Martin refuses to become Ethan's heir because his new will cuts out Ethan's surviving blood-relative, Debbie.
* ShoutOut: Wayne's gesture in the final scene (and page picture), gripping his dangling arm, was an imitation of and a tribute to early Western star Harry Carey, whose son, Harry Carey, Jr., worked with Wayne on a number of films, including this one (he plays Brad, and his mother Olive Carey plays Brad and Laurie's mother).
* StandardSnippet: Some of the tunes that John Ford used in many of his films make a reappearance:
** The ballad ''Lorena'', a favourite of the Confederate Army, for emotional scenes involving Ethan, his sister-in-law Martha, and Debbie.
** ''The Bonnie Blue Flag'', a Confederate theme tune, is briefly heard at the beginning, as Ethan returns from the Civil War.
** ''Yes, We'll Gather by the River'', John Ford's favourite hymn, is performed both at the funeral and at the wedding.
** ''The Yellow Rose of Texas'' is played at the dance before the wedding ceremony.
* StarCrossedLovers: Ethan and Martha. It's purely {{subtext}} in the film, but [[WordOfGod according to a John Wayne interview]], John Ford hinted many times that Ethan may have been the father of Lucy and Debbie.
* {{Subtext}}: Not just Ethan and Martha, but [[KissingCousins Debbie and Martin seem almost too close when they reunite for the first time...]]
* ThrowItIn: At the battle of the ford, where Captain Reverend Clayton accidentally looses off an unaimed shot after Ethan throws him a revolver. This accidentally happened to Ward Bond and John Ford decided to keep it in.
* TokenMinority: Martin Pawley, who is an octoroon (one-eighth) Cherokee.
* VictoriousChildhoodFriend: Or unlucky, considering how long she has to wait - Laurie Jorgensen. When Martin suggests they started "going steady", she pointedly tells him they have been going steady since they were three years old and it was about time he found out about it.
* WeddingSmashers
* YouHaveWaitedLongEnough: Laurie almost marries someone else, but given that Marty only sent her one letter in about five years that is understandable.
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<<|{{Film}}|>>
->''"Injun will chase a thing until he thinks he's chased it enough, then he quits. Same way when he runs. Seems like he never learns there's such a thing as a critter that will just keep comin' on. So we'll find 'em in the end, I promise you. We'll find 'em. Just as sure as the turnin' of the Earth."''
-->-- '''Ethan Edwards'''
->''"Do you know what Ethan will do if he has a chance? He'll put a bullet in her brain. And I tell you Martha would want him to."''
-->-- '''Laurie Jorgenson'''
''The Searchers'' is a 1956 {{Western}} film directed by JohnFord, starring JohnWayne, Jeffrey Hunter, and [[SceneryPorn Monument Valley, Utah]]. It's widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever.
Three years after the end of the AmericanCivilWar, Ethan Edwards (Wayne) rides back to his brother's family homestead in Texas. Ethan is wearing the jacket of a Confederate, and he's reticent about what he did after war, or where he obtained the money he's carrying. He intends to settle down, and to exchange [[{{Subtext}} long]] [[StarCrossedLovers glances]] with his sister-in-law Martha (Dorothy Jordan), but fate has other plans in store for him.
When Ethan rides out with the Texas Rangers to apprehend some cattle rustlers, a Comanche war party attacks the homestead, kidnapping young Debbie (NatalieWood) and murdering the rest of the family. Ethan sets off in pursuit, accompanied by his nephew-by-adoption Martin Pawley (Hunter).
The search drags on for years. Martin decides that he wants to start going steady with his childhood friend Laurie Jorgenson (Vera Miles); naturally, the fact that he won't give up the search for his sister complicates the relationship. Meanwhile, Ethan and Martin find that they don't quite see eye-to-eye on the nature of their real mission: Martin wants to rescue his sister; Ethan wants to kill some Comanche. And as far as Ethan's concerned, if Debbie's been married to one of those "bucks", she's no better than a Comanche...
''The Searchers'' is proof that the [[{{Deconstruction}} Revisionist Western]] didn't begin with SergioLeone: This was one of the first films to examine the racism underpinning the frontier Indian conflicts.
This film is also a subversion of JohnWayne's usual persona: rather than a gruff but ultimately kind-hearted cowboy, Ethan Edwards is a conflicted AntiHero with a genuinely nasty streak, a man who desecrates Comanche corpses on the off-chance that it will hurt them in the afterlife, and who enjoys firing on retreating enemies a little too much. Between unfulfilled love and fighting on the losing side of the Civil War, he's become so jaded that he seeks solace in abandoning his humanity -- but finds in the end that he can't do it. Wayne's performance as this character is widely considered the best of his career.
The film is widely influential and highly regarded: the American Film Institute ranked it #12 on their 2007 list of the 100 greatest movies; and #1 on their 2008 list of the ten greatest westerns. If you name [[MartinScorsese any]] [[StevenSpielberg famous]] [[GeorgeLucas director]] born in 1940s (not that there [[JossWhedon aren't]] [[QuentinTarantino others]]), they almost certainly have an {{Homage}} to this film somewhere in one (if not more) of theirs.
----
!!This film provides examples of:
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Look. Just....Look.
** And when Ethan and Martin stop off at a Mexican cantina while looking for Scar's party, there is a rather....vivacious Mexican senorita who wildly clacks her castanets in Martin's face while he's trying to eat (though, to be fair, she's more of an [[AbhorrentAdmirer Annoying Admirer]]).
* AccidentalMarriage: Martin and Look.
* [[CaliforniaDoubling Arizona Doubling]]: Monument Valley is not in Texas! But who cares, it's Monument Valley!
* AntiHero: Ethan is intitally, or at least very close to a Type V. Mellows out to a Type IV or III.
* BilingualBonus: Quite a bit, with both Comanche and Spanish. For instance, Marty at first does not realize that Chief Cicatriz = Chief Scar.
* {{Bookends}}: The film [[IncrediblyLamePun opens and closes with a door]].
* CavalryOfficer: Pat Wayne as the green Lieutenant Greenhill.
* [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Knife]]: Lieutenant Greenhill's sabre.
* CatchPhrase: Ethan's "That'll be the day."
** With a dose of MemeticMutation: it directly inspired Buddy Holly's song of the same name, for example. This also happens to be the first song John, Paul and George of some British rock band you might have heard of ever recorded.
* CloudCuckoolander / TheFool: Mose Harper. Though it's hinted he might not be quite as out there as he [[ObfuscatingStupidity appears to be]].
* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: Poor, poor Look.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The racism endemic in white Texan society in the 1860s and 1870s, where someone being 1/8th Cherokee was still a big deal, is not airbrushed out - even Laurie, one of the most sympathetic characters of the movie, is affected by it.
* {{Determinator}}: Both Ethan and Martin.
* DeterminedHomesteadersWife: Mrs. Jorgensen, especially in her rousing speech of how this country (which her husband just blamed for the death of his son) will become a good place to live, even if it may take their bones in the ground to achieve it.
* [[DontCallMeSir Don't Call Me Sir]]: Or Uncle Ethan. Or Methusalah.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:According to Wayne biographer Gary Wills, the reason Ethan stays outside the closing door at the end of the movie is not because he feels more at home in the wilderness, but because he knows that the primal rage that has sustained him all his life and yet has driven him to madness and alienation will never go away. Realizing that he has reached a psychological dead end, Ethan has decided to go off into the desert to die.]]
* DueToTheDead: Ethan desecrates a Comanche corpse to drive home the point that he's not a nice guy.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Look. Her real name is Wild Ghost Flying in the Night Sky.
* EyeScream: Ethan shoots out the eyes of a Comanche corpse, just on the offchance that the Comanche religion is correct about people being unable to enter paradise without eyes.
* FakeNationality: Scar was played by Henry Brandon, a blue-eyed German.
** Although ''The Searchers'' was partly inspired by the [[TruthInTelevision real-life story of Cynthia Parker, who was abducted by Comanches in 1836, grew up among them and whose son Quanah was a feared war chief]] active around the time the film is set.
* FreudianExcuse: Chief Scar.
* GoodShepherd: Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton
* GoryDiscretionShot
* HalfBreed: Martin Pawley is 1/8th Cherokee. Ethan mocks him for this, but ultimately comes to regard him as a son regardless.
* [[HeyItsThatGuy Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Some may know Martin Pawley better as [[StarTrek Captain Christopher Pike]].
--->'''[[FamilyGuy Stewie]]:''' Good evening. I am playing the role of Jesus, a man once portrayed on the big screen by Jeffrey Hunter. You may remember him as the actor who was replaced by William Shatner on ''Star Trek''. Apparently Mr. Hunter was good enough to die for our sins, but not quite up to the task of seducing green women.
** Laurel & Hardy fans will know Chief Scar as the villainous Barnaby.
** And as usual more than half the cast each appeared in ''several'' other JohnFord films.
* IronicEcho: Early in the movie the dog barks a warning as the Comanche raiders sneak up on the Edwards family farm. Near the end, another dog barks out as the rangers close in on the Comanche camp, but Chief Scar does not heed the warning. There is also this:
--> '''Ethan Edwards:''' You speak pretty good American. Someone teach you?
--> ''(later)''
--> '''Scar:''' You speak good Comanche. Someone teach you?
* IWillFindYou
* IWillWaitForYou: Laurie Jorgensen does this for Marty. At first you can even say that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" - contrast her subdued goodbye to Martin when he first sets out after the funeral (they just shake hands) to her exuberant and (by 1870s standards) almost indecent welcome when he and Ethan first return to the Jorgensen homestead a couple of years later.
* {{Jerkass}} / JerkassFacade: Ethan is genuinely a Jerkass, but he can't quite abandon his humanity like he wants to.
* KickTheDog: When Ethan fires wildly into a buffalo herd, howling, "They won't feed any Comanche ''this'' winter!" Try not to cringe.
** Scar chucks a rock at a dog that won't shut up.
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: Subverted repeatedly in the 'fist'fight between Marty and Charlie. Which begins with a cute ritual of laying down a piece of wood and spitting over it.
* LivingMacGuffin: Debbie.
* {{Motif}} / BookEnds: See the picture above. That particular blocking (the sun-drenched desert framed by the shadows of rocks or a building's interior) appears in the first and final scenes, and many times in between.
** Also [[spoiler: the way Ethan lifts Debbie into the air in their first scene together, echoed when he lifted her in the climactic/cathartic scene near the end]].
* MoodWhiplash: Especially in the 1950s it must have been quite jarring for the audience to laughing at the apparent comic-relief character Look to seeing her fear when Ethan and Marty put her under harsh questioning where Scar might be to her discovery as one of the victims of the cavalry massacre.
* MusicOfNote: The MaxSteiner score.
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: The scene with Martin in the bath and Laurie.
* NoPlaceForMeThere: [[spoiler:Ethan, at the end, as he realizes he is no longer welcome with the family he saved]]
* NobleBigot: Ethan is bigoted toward ''both'' Comanche's and Feds.
* NoodleIncident: Whatever happened to Ethan during the war.
* NotSoDifferent: Ethan and Scar.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Okay, so Mose Harper is already kind of a little....not there. But he pretends to be even ''crazier'' in order to escape from his Comanche captors, even eating grass like Nebuchadnezzar.
* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene : They stumble across some of this done by the Comanches early in the film as well as a random Indian woman killed by the cavalry later in the movie. The general point is that on both sides, some HumansAreBastards.
** Maybe this would be closer to WarIsHell.
*** The second scene foreshadows a similar one in ''Film/LittleBigMan'', featuring the same unit, the 7th Cavalry, and their regimental tune, "Garry Owen".
* OhCrap: Lucy Edwards Screams her head off when she realizes the Comanche are about to attack.
* RealLifeRelative: The actor playing Brad Jorgensen is the son of the actress who plays his mother. Pat Wayne appears in a scene with his father JohnWayne. Ken Curties (Charlie [=McCorry=]) was John Ford's son-in-law.
* SceneryPorn: Did we mention that this was filmed in Monument Valley?
* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Figueroa returning the money Ethan gave him after he realizes why Ethan wanted to speak to Scar, because he does not want blood money. Not that he didn't know from the get-go that they were planning to kill Scar, but because it appeared that he had unwittingly led the white men to their deaths. A little later Martin refuses to become Ethan's heir because his new will cuts out Ethan's surviving blood-relative, Debbie.
* ShoutOut: Wayne's gesture in the final scene (and page picture), gripping his dangling arm, was an imitation of and a tribute to early Western star Harry Carey, whose son, Harry Carey, Jr., worked with Wayne on a number of films, including this one (he plays Brad, and his mother Olive Carey plays Brad and Laurie's mother).
* StandardSnippet: Some of the tunes that John Ford used in many of his films make a reappearance:
** The ballad ''Lorena'', a favourite of the Confederate Army, for emotional scenes involving Ethan, his sister-in-law Martha, and Debbie.
** ''The Bonnie Blue Flag'', a Confederate theme tune, is briefly heard at the beginning, as Ethan returns from the Civil War.
** ''Yes, We'll Gather by the River'', John Ford's favourite hymn, is performed both at the funeral and at the wedding.
** ''The Yellow Rose of Texas'' is played at the dance before the wedding ceremony.
* StarCrossedLovers: Ethan and Martha. It's purely {{subtext}} in the film, but [[WordOfGod according to a John Wayne interview]], John Ford hinted many times that Ethan may have been the father of Lucy and Debbie.
* {{Subtext}}: Not just Ethan and Martha, but [[KissingCousins Debbie and Martin seem almost too close when they reunite for the first time...]]
* ThrowItIn: At the battle of the ford, where Captain Reverend Clayton accidentally looses off an unaimed shot after Ethan throws him a revolver. This accidentally happened to Ward Bond and John Ford decided to keep it in.
* TokenMinority: Martin Pawley, who is an octoroon (one-eighth) Cherokee.
* VictoriousChildhoodFriend: Or unlucky, considering how long she has to wait - Laurie Jorgensen. When Martin suggests they started "going steady", she pointedly tells him they have been going steady since they were three years old and it was about time he found out about it.
* WeddingSmashers
* YouHaveWaitedLongEnough: Laurie almost marries someone else, but given that Marty only sent her one letter in about five years that is understandable.
----
<<|{{Film}}|>>
