John Wayne made some of the greatest Westerns of all time with his favourite collaborator director John Ford, but without a doubt, their greatest was the highly influential The Searchers.

The masterpiece is considered one of the greatest films of all time and saw Duke play a Civil War veteran spending years searching for his abducted niece, played by Natalie Wood.

Wayne took his role as Ethan Edwards incredibly seriously; a far cry from his usual light-heartedness during most of his movie…