BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

BBC Radio 4 FM

Radio 4 (FM)

In Search of the Real Searchers 

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: History

BBC Radio 4 Extra - In Search of the Real Searchers

Mark Burman explores the real history behind the classic 1950s western The Searchers.

4 Extra Debut. Mark Burman travels in searches of the real, brutal history behind the classic novel and 50s film, The Searchers. From 2014.

In 1956, John Ford's film ‘The Searchers’ offered a vivid and complex portrayal of frontier life in post-Civil War Texas - adapted from Alan Le May's classic 1954 novel.

It’s memorably dominated by the brooding presence of John Wayne's Ethan Edwards, a bitter war veteran searching for his kidnapped niece.

But what is the real history behind the novel and film? Who were the real searchers?   Mark Burman takes an epic journey across the American West.

It begins in God's own movie set, Monument Valley, the backdrop for all Ford's Westerns from Stagecoach onwards. On screen, this is Texas 1868, marauded by Comanches. In reality, this is Arizona, the Indians are Navajo and their leader, Scar, is actually Heinrich von Kleinbach! This is a piece of casting that finds unlikely echoes in the real history behind The Searchers.

Three decades separate two raids that encapsulate the long war between the Comanches and the white settlers who found their way to Texas in ever growing numbers. In 1836 a brutal attack on Fort Parker saw the abduction of 9 year old Cynthia Ann Parker whilst in 1864 the Elm Creek Raid took the family of black slave Britt Johnson. These events and other bitter encounters between Comanches and Texans shaped both Texas history and the later mythology of the Wild West. 

The real searchers, Burman finds, are even more heroic than John Wayne and a challenge to the movie stereotypes of cowboys and Indians.

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2014.

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

In Search of the Real Searchers

Genres

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4