What really happened to Ethan Edwards after ‘The Searchers’, according to John Wayne
It’s one of the most famous final shots in cinema history, and for the last 70 years, theories have run rampant about what happened to Ethan Edwards after The Searchers. It may have been left open-ended, but John Wayne had his version of what came next.
Arguably the best movie ‘The Duke’ ever starred in, quite possibly John Ford’s magnum opus, too, and almost certainly the greatest and most influential western ever made, the 1956 epic features Wayne’s finest hour in front of the camera, with the icon giving the best performance of his career, bar none.
Blurring the lines between the character and the man who played him, Edwards was closer to the Hollywood legend than any other role he played, reflecting the moral enigmas that defined him away from the cameras by bottling and projecting those complexities in front of them.
Having succeeded in his mission and by rescuing Natalie Wood’s Debbie Edwards and returning her home, Ethan stands in the doorway of the Jorgensen ranch, takes a minute to watch the happy family reunited while standing in the doorway, before turning around and walking off into the sunset.
The pose Wayne strikes, an homage to Harry Carey, became one of the defining images of his big-screen career, and with his purpose fulfilled, he walks away, signifying that Ethan knows there’s no place for him to have a happy ending. Or, as Martin Scorsese suggested, “In its final moment, The Searchers suddenly becomes a ghost story; he’s destined to wander forever between the winds.”
That’s one way to interpret the seminal final shot, and there are countless others, but what did ‘The Duke’ think? He was never one for symbolism, so he took a more literal approach. “I’m sure that he went off, and got on his horse, and went into town and had a few belts, and somebody said, ‘That land your brother’s homestead is getting close to, you know where the old burned-out building is?'”
In Wayne’s estimation, Ethan wouldn’t have aimlessly wandered for too long. “The railroad is right close to there now, and it’s worth some money,” he theorised. “Why don’t you go out there and start growing some wheat, or put up some corrals, and make a siding there, and buy cattle and sell them?”
From his perspective, the character’s journey was far from over, and neither did it enter mythical territory. Instead, he envisioned a post-Searchers world where Ethan started a ranch of his own, which is a lot less exciting than the mystery Ford left audiences with, and one they’ve continued to debate for seven decades.
“Somehow or another,” Wayne concluded. “A man as strong as that man isn’t going to quit.” Everyone has their own idea of what did or didn’t happen to Ethan after The Searchers, and that’s his, but since he’s John Wayne, he played the role, and he made it his own: would you argue with him?
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