41-The Searchers - Director:John Ford. -Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, and Natalie Wood.

"You can have a weak, utterly bad script--and a good cast will turn it into a good picture. I've thwarted more than one handicap of that kind with the aid of two or three really fine actors."

-John Ford-

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"How can I hate John Wayne upholding [Barry] Goldwater and yet love him tenderly when abruptly he takes Natalie Wood into his arms in the last reel of The Searchers?"

-Jean-Luc Godard-

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"I've always thought [Wayne is] underrated as an actor. I think The Searchers is one of the most marvelous performances of all time."

-James Stewart-

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"(John Ford is)... the greatest poet the cinema has given us"

-Orson Welles-

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"Every country in the world loved the folklore of the West--the music, the dress, the excitement, everything that was associated with the opening of a new territory. It took everybody out of their own little world. The cowboy lasted a hundred years, created more songs and prose and poetry than any other folk figure. The closest thing was the Japanese samurai. Now, I wonder who'll continue it."

-John Wayne-

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"Good Westerns are liked by everyone. Since humans are weak, they want to see good people and great heroes. Westerns have been done over and over again, and in the process a kind of grammar has evolved. I have learned much from this grammar of the Western."

-Akira Kurosawa (who much admired John Ford;probably his favorite director)-

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"John Wayne represents more force, more power, than anybody else on the screen"

-Howard Hawks-