Museum of the Moving Image Honors Director John Ford

One could ponder how such a grump guy could produce such poetic films. But one could also ponder how any human could direct more than 150 movies of such high quality over a lifetime.

John Ford, whose career ran from 1917 to 1965, was the consummate filmmaker who specialized in westerns and creating conflicts between good and evil. But he also liked dramas and pitting order against chaos, nature against civilization, and law against ethics.

From July 3 through August 2, the Museum of the Moving Image will present The Essential John Ford, a tribute series that will screen 20 of the honoree’s films.

First up is Young Mr. Lincoln, a series of minor, mostly fictionalized events that examine President Abraham Lincoln’s character. Other movies include Pilgrimage, which is about a mother who sends her son to war to prevent his marriage to a woman she doesn’t like; Judge Priest, in which Will Rogers plays a noble judge who tries to vindicate the secret father of a girl and change southern prejudices; and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, which stars a grizzled old cavalry captain who has one last mission before his impending retirement: to prevent a new Native American war.

Other scheduled classics are Wagon Master, a western about a Mormon expedition across Utah, and The Searchers, which depicts the star’s quest to find his abducted niece and the Comanche chief who kidnapped her.

Click here for a full schedule.

Details: The Essential John Ford, Museum of the  Moving Image, 36-01 35th Avenue, Kaufman Arts District, July 3 through August 2, times vary, $12/$9 seniors and students/$6 children (ages 3–12).

Photo by 20th Century Fox