In “The Prisoner of the Desert”, John Wayne plays a former soldier launched in pursuit of Comanches who kidnapped his niece. Adapted from an Alan Le May novel, the John Ford classic is inspired by the true story of Cynthia Ann Parker.
The Prisoner of the Desert : the ruthless pursuit
After The Fantastic Ride, The Son of the Desert or The Quiet Man, John Ford reunites with his favorite actor John Wayne for The Prisoner of the Desert. In this western released in 1956 and considered one of the peaks of the genre, the actor embodies one of his most complex characters. He lends his features to Ethan Edwards, a former Confederate soldier who returned to Texas in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War.
Soon after his arrival, his brother Aaron’s ranch is attacked by the Comanches, who kill three family members and kidnap his nieces, Lucy and Debbie. Nourishing a hatred for the Indians, the former soldier sets out in pursuit of them with the firm intention of revenge. Accompanied by several neighbors, he quickly finds himself alone with Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), adopted son of his brother and his sister-in-law. The years go by, but the two men do not give up on their hunt.
Vera Miles, Natalie Wood as well as Ward Bond and Harry Carey Jr., emblematic faces of Fordian cinema, complete the cast of The Prisoner of the Desert. The feature film benefits sublime settings like Monument Valley, notably filmed from the famous John Ford Point. When he prepares the colossal Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean looks at the western on multiple occasions to study the staging of the great outdoors.
An american legend
The Prisoner of the Desert is the adaptation of the eponymous novel by Alan Le May, also author of The Unforgiven, on which John Huston bases himself for The Wind of the Plain. For this book, published in 1954, the writer is inspired by the story of Cynthia Ann Parker.
Passionate about John Ford’s film, Glenn Frankel decides to investigate the latter’s life and devotes the book to it. The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend, published in 2013. With this project, the journalist tries to disentangle the truth from the false around the account of a nine-year-old girl kidnapped by Comanches and Kiowas in 1836, in Texas.
According to the writer, her father and grandfather were killed in front of her, before she was kidnapped with four other children. Bred as Comanche, she would have gradually forgotten her past. Married to one of the members of his tribe, she would have had three children with him.
A symbol of the damage of war
24 years after his kidnapping, Texas Rangers and members of the cavalry reportedly attacked his camp, killed several of her relatives and allegedly took her by force with her daughter. She would never have seen her husband again, as well as their two sons.
She would have spent the rest of her life in miserable conditions, following customs that had become foreign to her. Details around her death remain unclear, but it is likely that she died soon after her daughter was swept away by an epidemic, according to information from theAustin Chronicle. As Glenn Frankel assures with CNN, Cynthia Ann Parker is “a symbol of the damage and violence of this long Comanche / Texans war”.
A figure of which The Prisoner of the Desert moves away to focus on the ambiguous character of Ethan, actor of this war blinded by anger. In Dancing with the wolves, Mary McDonnell performs “Dressed with the Fist”, a protagonist also inspired by Cynthia Ann Parker.
