The John Ford Movie Mystery by Andrew Sarris

Summary of the book's content

The book John Ford Movie Mystery is about John Ford who was a legendary film maker. The book goes on with his introduction as he had won Oscars for his dramatic features The Informer (1936), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Quiet Man (1952), and two wartime documentaries, which were made outside the Hollywood system. According to the book, in spite of the critical acclaim that these films have received, Ford is popularly regarded as a director of westerns, the director who made John Wayne a star and made Monument Valley the locus for the myth of the American West. It was a reputation he encouraged. Among his most popular westerns are Staqecoach (1939), My Darlinq Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1947), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

Sarris in his book described that Western or non-western, Ford's films exhibit characteristics that transcend those categories. Critics have recognized Ford's preoccupation with the traditional values of home and country, whether the country is Ireland or the United States; they have characterized his heroes as loners, men disappointed with life in some way that is only implied; and they have enumerated the elements of a typical Ford film: Monument Valley, the Seventh Cavalry, a fight, a dance, a wedding, a funeral, and the members of the so-called John Ford Stock Company, actors who appeared again and again in his films: John Wayne, Victor McLaglen, Henry Fonda, Ward Bond, Olive Carey, Harry Carey, Jr., John Qualen, and Hank Worden among others.

Why Ford did this is not clear. It might have been a result of studio politics, of Ford's strong patriarchal bent, or of the practical constraints ...