The Searchers "Probing the dark side of frontier pluck, director John Ford won acclaim for this tale of a revenge-obsessed loner (John Wayne) out to rescue his niece, who's been kidnapped by Comanche Indians. Over the decades, it became a touchstone for such filmmakers as Martin Scorsese and George Lucas (it's all over ''Star Wars''). Producer Polly Platt, who befriended Ford in the '60s with her ex-creative partner/husband Peter Bogdanovich (and often screened a 16 mm print of the film to critics and friends), explains why the film endures: ''It's purely visual. Run it with no sound, and you follow every story point just by how he uses the camera.'" [ET Weekly: Fab 400] More details   Schedule The Saturday Afternoon Matinee screening of The Searchers is a joint program event at Cornerstone Festival shared by the Flickerings Film Showcase and our original film venue at the fest, the Imaginarium. Other components of the John Ford theme include a morning seminar series in Flickerings, "The Poetic Vision of John Ford", hosted by James Wall, on Thursday and Friday, July 5th and 6th, at 10:00 AM. In the Imaginarium, a classic Ford Western will be screened each night of the festival. (To get you in the mood, we've posted a brief preview sketch of the director and his work.) © 2001 Cornerstone Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.