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Granted, Brokeback isn’t a true Western, but people were calling it that. It does stress a lot of the great qualities of an old-time mountain country epic: sweeping vistas, quite pensive men and women who strive for good in a world gone awry, yet something is missing.

There are many things the film has in common with this long-dormant Hollywood genre. However, I can’t quite bring myself to call it a Western as it takes place in the 1960s, long after the West was ‘won.’

No, to find a true Western, it’d be best to travel back to the time of Hollywood’s quintessential cowboy John Wayne and examine his greatest role in The Searchers, a film that was released fifty years ago this past month.

The Searchers is one of those classic movies where you think you may have seen it and can recite bits and pieces of it, but you can’t remember.

After all, John Wayne was in over a hundred films in his career, and many of them followed the typical Hollywood form to say the least. The Searchers, though, is not a film that follows any sort of formula. It is the Vertigo of the Western genre.

The Searchers takes all of the pieces of a proper Western: the iconic hero, the boy-scout like morality, the big drama turmoil, and twists these until you are almost squirming at the edge of your seat, desperate for the next scene.

The film is a tale of Ethan Edwards (Wayne), who tries to rescue his kidnapped niece (a young and beautiful Natalie Wood) from the Comanches after the Civil War has ended.

The film starts out rather simply, trying to lure the viewer into a sense of false security, giving them homespun clichÄs of previous Westerns.

However, those keeping a sharp eye out will notice that there’s something funny in the way that Wayne’s character is a little too abrasive, a little too much of the definitive cowboy.

As the film wears on, Wayne’s character shifts to a driven, almost mad cowboy, on the hunt for his niece.

The story stretches for years, and the wear and tear on Wayne’s persona is a masterful study in acting. Though he was shockingly left out of Oscar’s lineup that year, of all his 130 performances, it is this one that exhibits his greatest thespian tendencies.

Few Westerns, none other than Brokeback have been made in the last twenty years that equal the sort of resonance that The Searchers exhibits (though the heartbreaking Lonesome Dove and the hilarious Tombstone both are well-needed exceptions).

Perhaps, with the high-quality film that Ang Lee delivered last year, the tales of cowboys, pioneers, and their journeys will be told once more in Hollywood.

And, if they have the delicate angst and passion of The Searchers, bravo to Hollywood. After all, great films never go out of style.