By critical consensus today, The Searchers is the greatest Hollywood Western, and has inspired non-Western films from Star Wars to Taxi Driver. John Wayne was never more compelling-frightening and yet sympathetic in his loneliness-than in this dark, haunted role as an Indian fighter whose obsession and racism separate him even from other Westerners. A captivity narrative is mixed with a revenge tale, as former Confederate soldier Wayne returns briefly to his family before setting out for years in search of a niece abducted by Comanches. In outline, it is such a grim tale that Ford's broadly comic moments, for once, make just the right punctuation. His visual storytelling, with precise staging in place of words, was also never more masterly. Monument Valley's tomblike monoliths loom above the lost pioneers in an early VistaVision Technicolor spectacle that demands the big screen.