“I hope you have the pleasure of buying me a drink on your next payday.”
by chuckofish
Yesterday was the birthday of the great director John Ford (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973). In fact, he is probably the greatest of all film directors. Even Bergman and Kurosawa looked up to him.
“Stagecoach” 1939
When I was watching Red River (1948) the other day, which is directed by the great Howard Hawks, I kept thinking, “This is good, but it would have looked so much better had John Ford directed.” There are some good shots in this movie–notably of the swarming cattle herd–but he never gets the huge vistas that Ford would have had. You never get the sense of the size of Texas or the sky in Kansas. Most of it looks like it was filmed on a soundstage with bad lighting. John Ford would have opened it up.
The iconic approaching storm scene in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” 1949
“The Searchers” 1956
A lot of Ford’s success is due to his close association with two great cinematographers, with whom he worked on many of his greatest films: Winton C. Hoch (3 Godfathers (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Quiet Man (1952), and The Searchers (1956); and Bert Glennon: Stagecoach (1939), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Rio Grande (1950), Wagon Master (1950), Sergeant Rutledge (1960).
He knew how to pick ’em. And he knew how to cast. His ensemble casts are second to none.
“The Long Voyage Home” 1940
He won four Best Director Oscars–for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1942), and The Quiet Man (1952).
“How Green Was My Valley” 1942
He won two more Academy Awards for best Documentary–The Battle of Midway (1942) and December 7th (1943). Of course, not one of them was for a western. There are so many for which he should have at least been nominated–The Searchers (1956) and My Darling Clementine (1946) chief among them.
I’m not saying that all his films are great. In fact, they are quite inconsistent. He can succumb to a weepy Irish sentimentality which is unfortunate and can be embarrassing. Any movie involving James Cagney, Tyrone Power, Grace Kelly, Spencer Tracy, and/or English history (yes, I’m thinking Mary of Scotland) should be avoided. But even these can be entertaining and worth watching.
John Wayne and Henry Fonda were never better than under the direction of John Ford. And John Ford had the good sense to use them often. He famously cast the relatively unknown John Wayne in Stagecoach when the producer wanted Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich. The result using the big stars would have been a good movie, but Marlene would have taken over and Gary would have been all aw shucks and adorable–standard fare.
Directors who copied his style have made a lot of standard movies. His never were.
John Wayne gave the eulogy at his funeral.
So a toast tonight to the great John Ford!
Sgt. Beaufort in Fort Apache (1948)
dual personalities 
Of course he never won an Oscar for a western. Ughhh!
John Ford may have been the greatest director of westerns, but none of his four directing Oscars were for his sagebrush sagas. Only his classic 1939 “Stagecoach” and 1963’s “How the West Was Won” — on which Ford was one of three directors — were nominated for the best picture Academy Award. Even his 1956 masterwork, “The Searchers,” a complex story of a Civil War vet’s obsessive quest for his niece captured by Indians, failed to receive an Oscar nomination.
“People at this time of year like to talk about Oscar snubs,” said Richard Jewell, a film professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts who teaches a class on the western genre. “The fact that they gave the best picture award that year to ‘Around the World in 80 Days,’ a film that we can’t watch anymore, and didn’t give a single nomination or award to ‘The Searchers’ or a nomination to John Wayne for a performance which is one of the most powerful performances in the history of movies, it is just a travesty.”
Only three traditional westerns, 1931’s “Cimarron,” 1990’s “Dances With Wolves” and 1992’s “Unforgiven” have won the best picture Oscar. And only a handful more have received best picture nominations, including 1952’s “High Noon,” 1953’s “Shane,” 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and now Joel and Ethan Coen’s revisionist “True Grit.” (The Coens’ 2007 best picture winner “No Country for Old Men” was set in the modern West.)
(from an article in the L.A. Times, 2/17/11)
I always enjoy your Monument Valley posts. My father liked “the Valley” so much he had an artist come in and paint a mural in our NJ basement from his slides taken there…wish I still had the painting. I visited Monument Valley in 1957 with my family when it was still a remote locale and before it became commercialized. Returned a few years ago and was a little disappointed with all the tours and other stuff being hawked but it is still a gorgeous place. Both times, stayed at Gouldings across the road…every night they show one of Ford’s great movies set in “the Valley” and they offer a good, reasonable tour of the sights.
It is on my bucket list for sure!!
[…] it is February 1 and the birthday of John Ford, I thought it was time for another pop quiz! The following quotes are all from famous films […]