To say John Ford directed Westerns is seriously to underplay the point.
Yes, he was probably responsible for more classic Westerns than any director, everything from 1924's "The Iron Horse," the story of the first transcontinental railroad, to 1962's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence," a nod to the idea that Western myth was often more important than Western fact.
Yes, he directed both 1939's "Stagecoach" and 1956's "The Searchers," films that define the Western genre. And yes, he discovered John Wayne.
But his greatest film, 1940's "The Grapes of Wrath," was set squarely in the 20th century, didn't contain a single scene shot in Monument Valley and, in its depiction of an Okie family's flight to California, eschewed Western mythology for Dust Bowl reality.
Ford won four Best Director Oscars, not one for a film with a cowboy at its center. Two of his most popular films aren't even set in America: 1941's "How Green Was My Valley," about life and struggle in a South Wales mining village, and 1952's "The Quiet Man," a tale of Ireland that's become a staple of St. Patrick's Day celebrations everywhere (and the film that proves he never forgot he was born Sean O'Feeney).
He may have been most proud of the documentaries he made for the Navy during World War II, propaganda films for which he won two more Oscars and served as commander of his own naval reserve unit.
In other words, John Ford was a great filmmaker, period, with a range that should become clear to anyone who spends time watching this weekend's seventh annual Film Preservation Festival on AMC. Although the three-day festival's centerpiece is a restored version of "How Green Was My Valley," the only Ford-directed film to win a Best Picture Oscar, more than 20 other films are being shown as well. Together they make a strong case for Ford's reputation as one of the giants.
"If I could divide his work into three easy categories," says Ford's grandson, Dan, whose 1979 book, "Pappy: The Life of John Ford," was re-released last year, "there are the Westerns, there are the Navy-Pacific island pictures, like 'Donovan's Reef,' 'They Were Expendable' and 'Hurricane,' and there are the hands-across-the-sea pictures, films set in England and Ireland."
Each of those three branches has its partisans. Ford's most beloved film may be "The Quiet Man," the story of a retired boxer who returns to his native Ireland in search of a peaceful life and finds he picked the wrong place. "The Searchers," with its magnificent Monument Valley settings and strong sense of the Western as myth, is routinely rated among the greatest, most influential American films.
Dan Ford's favorite is 1945's "They Were Expendable," starring Robert Montgomery as a PT boat commander whose vessel provides hope during America's defeat in the Philippines. "I think it captured a sense of loss, of unrequited love," says Dan Ford. "The real story isn't about the value of PT boats. It's the story of a group of men who were confronted with great odds."
If nothing else, such variety puts the lie to Ford's own self-assessment, "I make Westerns." More to the point was Orson Welles, who once admitted he was most influenced by "the old masters by which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford."
AMC's lineup this weekend spans nearly half a century, from 1917 to 1964. And it offers the rare chance to watch not only the development of a significant film director but the development of film itself.
The festival kicks off at 6 tomorrow morning with 1917's "Straight Shooting," the earliest of Ford's films known to exist (most of Ford's silent films have been lost, a fact that bears out the need for film preservation efforts like those being highlighted this weekend). Starring Harry Carey as the hand-picked arbiter of a dispute between cattlemen and nearby settlers, the film -- like most of Ford's early silents -- suggests some of the themes he would return to time and again: the difference that one good man can make and the clash between frontier passion and encroaching civilization. It also evinces some of the cinematic techniques Ford would continue to develop over his career.
"You see patterns in them, you see shots you'll see in other pictures, you see a career evolving," says Dan Ford, 54, who followed his grandfather into filmmaking and specializes in chronicling live events. "You can trace the development from 'Straight Shooting' to 'Three Bad Men' to 'The Searchers.' "
Ford's silent films dominate the early-morning programming each day. Some will appeal to film historians only, but that's not true of his three best silents. "The Iron Horse," a big-budget epic ($450,000, real money in 1924) envisioned as Fox studio's answer to the box-office success of Paramount's "The Covered Wagon," made Ford's reputation; it's still an exciting look at the men who labored under the harshest of conditions to build a shore-to-shore railroad.
There's also 1926's "Three Bad Men," a film set in the Dakota land rush that includes one of Ford's most memorable scenes: a baby being snatched out of the path of the onrushing homesteaders. In 1928's "Four Sons," Ford doffed his cap to the German Expressionist filmmakers then in vogue, showing a surprisingly sure-handed grasp of their techniques.
John Ford's reputation was made primarily after sound was introduced to pictures. Unlike some of his fellow directors, he was able to take the skills he'd honed in the silent days and apply them to the talkies. He hated doing more than one take and kept dialogue to a minimum -- traits that were essential when studios were cranking out a silent picture every few days but were even more welcome in the early days of the talkies. That was when filming became more expensive and filmmakers thought sound films required endless (and endlessly boring) monologues.
The film that is perhaps Ford's first great talkie, 1935's "The Informer," with Victor McLaglen as an Irishman who rats on his friends during the Civil War of 1922, unfortunately won't be shown on AMC. Among the early talkies that will are 1933's "Dr. Bull," with Will Rogers as a country doctor, and 1936's "The Prisoner of Shark Island," the story of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the Maryland physician imprisoned for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth.
These are the films that are worth molding your weekend schedule around. Movies such as "How Green Was My Valley," "The Searchers" and "The Grapes of Wrath" deserve their revered status, and one can never see them enough. But watching "Three Bad Men" and "Dr. Bull" is made even more enjoyable by the knowledge that their director would develop into one of the world's most influential filmmakers.
Pop the corn, get comfy ...
FRIDAY 6 a.m.: Straight Shooting (1917) 7: 15 a.m.: The Village Blacksmith (1922) 7: 30 a.m.: Iron Horse (1924) 10 a.m.: Lightnin' (1925) 11: 45 a.m.: Four Men and a Prayer (1938) 1: 15 p.m.: The World Moves On (1934) 3: 15 p.m.: Battle of Midway (1942) 3: 45 p.m.: December 7th (1943) 4: 30 p.m.: When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950) 6 p.m.: What Price Glory? (1952) 8 p.m.: How Green Was My Valley (1941) 10: 05 p.m.: John Ford documentary
Midnight: How Green Was My Valley (1941) 2: 05 a.m.: What Price Glory? (1952) 4: 05 a.m.: Mother Machree (1928) 4: 45 a.m.: Men Without Women (1930)
SATURDAY 6 a.m.: The Blue Eagle (1926) 7: 15 a.m.: The Shamrock Handicap (1926) 8: 30 a.m.: Four Sons (1928) 10: 30 a.m.: Riley the Cop (1928)
Noon: Seas Beneath (1931) 1: 30 p.m.: Dr. Bull (1933) 3 p.m.: The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936) 4: 45 p.m.: AFI Tribute to John Ford 6 p.m.: Donovan's Reef (1963) 8 p.m.: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) 10: 15 p.m.: My Darling Clementine (1946) (UCLA version)
Midnight: Donovan's Reef (1963) 2 a.m.: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) 4: 05 a.m.: My Darling Clementine (1946) (MOMA version)
SUNDAY 6 a.m.: Three Bad Men (1926) 7: 35 a.m.: Hangman's House (1928) 8: 45 a.m.: Salute (1929) 10: 15 a.m.: Air Mail (1932) 11: 45 a.m.: Pilgrimage (1933) 1: 30 p.m.: The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 3: 40 p.m.: John Ford documentary 5: 35 p.m.: The Long Gray Line (1955) (letterbox) 8 p.m.: The Searchers (1956) (letterbox) 10: 05 p.m.: "Behind the Screen" 10: 35 p.m.: Cheyenne Autumn (1964) (letterbox) 1: 15 a.m.: John Ford documentary 3: 15 a.m.: Behind the Screen 3: 45 a.m.: The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Pub Date: 8/05/99