NR | 1 h 45 min | Drama, Western | 1948
Several 20th-century filmmakers, among them notably John Ford, took turns bringing Peter B. Kyne’s novella “The Three Godfathers” to the screen: a Westernized retelling of the timeless Christmas tale of the Three Wise Men.
Three robbers flee a posse of Arizona lawmen across a desert, led by Sheriff Buck Sweet (Ward Bond). The outlaws, Bob (John Wayne), Pete/Pedro (Pedro Armendáriz), and Bill (Harry Carey Jr.) come across a pregnant widow in a deserted horse-wagon and, reluctantly, help deliver her baby boy.
Ford’s scenes of swearing-in deputies convey contrasting mandates of masculinity. Sweet swears in armed cowboys. The dying mother swears in fugitives as godfathers of her child.
Saddled with an infant and robbed of their horses by hostile desert elements, the men are shadows of the ambitious, arrogant robbers they were. They carry and care for the child, braving hunger, thirst, injury, fatigue, and fierce desert heat and wind.
Ford’s plot is pacific, his storytelling is trite in parts, and the only semblance of action is a robbery-chase sequence. There’s little, except the miraculous birth of a child in an impossible wilderness, to explain why hardened criminals have so sudden, so stark a change of heart. Still, the film brims with meaning.
The familiar Western melody “The Streets of Laredo” salutes the promise of goodness in the cowboy “wrapped in white linen” (a lifetime of choices now unfulfilled) and bemoans its betrayal by the cowboy who knows he’s “done wrong” (after a lifetime of unwise choices).
Ford shuns close-ups in favor of long and extra-long shots of the trio on horseback, on foot, on their bellies, on their backs, atop and below proud sand dunes. He shows them longing for little spots of water, then lamenting the lack of them.
Bereft of an obvious villain, the desert becomes a character, its parched features set like stone against these men, working out their redemption through their enforced exodus. Like some divine force, it cleanses intent and thought and clarifies action. Ford likens their exodus to a spiritual marathon that forces them to shed what may slow them down: saddles, horses, gun belts, guns, and eventually, their hats. They end up shedding their egos, too.
An Atypical Western
Hats overshadow guns as symbols of masculinity. Bob stretches out his hat to shield wounded Bill from the scorching sun, and removes his hat, and unbuckles his gun belt, before entering the wagon to reassure the dying mother. He shows manly regret, respect, restraint, and resolve in the way he handles his hat.Richard Hageman’s hymnal score consecrates moments, such as the one where Pedro enters the wagon to aid in childbirth. Ford’s camera treats the wagon as a temple hosting something sacred, just as the woman prone in it, hosts a sacred life.
For all his cinematic sermonizing about how crucial men are as procreators, providers, and protectors, Ford stresses how crucial women are in nursing, nurturing, and nourishing. A nearly 10-minute sequence shows the three men fumbling, not knowing what to do with the baby, how and in what sequence. With not a woman in sight, Ford hails a woman’s vital role in conception, childbearing, childbirth, and childcare.
Kyne’s story redefines equality; it isn’t the absence of dependence, sometimes it’s meaningful, contextualized interdependence. The very idea of a godparent acknowledges how fleeting our lives are, how fragile we are, and how it’s no bad thing if godparents intervene when parents are unable or unwilling to parent as they should.
A woman isn’t inferior because she’s dependent on her man (such as when she’s pregnant) any more than a baby is inferior because he’s dependent on a parent. If someone as exalted as God (as a babe) isn’t demeaned by being at the mercy of human providence and protection, humans shouldn’t take umbrage when forced to count on each other.
