SOURCE: "The Case of John Ford," in Sewanee Review, Vol. LXXXIV, No. 4, October-December, 1976, pp. 614-29.

In the following essay, Muir maintains that despite the overt, sensational presence of aberrant sexual passion in Ford's major plays, the tragic events and outcomes of the dramas indicate the operation of a conservative underlying moral and religious philosophy.

In spite of the many books written on John Ford during the last forty years and some notable essays by T. S. Eliot, Peter Ure, and Robert Ornstein, his standing is still inse-cure. He is contrasted, very much to his disadvantage, with Middleton, Webster, and Tourneur; he is branded as a "decadent"—whatever moral or aesthetic decline that label implies; and we have had little opportunity of seeing his work where it belongs—in the theater. It is unfortunate that some of the best, and most influential, critics of our time regard the playhouse...