John Ford: American FilmmakerJohn Ford, maker of...

John Ford: American Filmmaker

John Ford, maker of Westerns, defender of lost causes, balladeer of history, is sometimes disparaged by academic Americans. But among directors here and abroad--including fans such as Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa--he always was regarded as a great artist. TNT’s all-Ford Thursday includes the convulsive 1937 Nordhoff-Hall epic “The Hurricane” (5 p.m.), the rarely screened 1935 gangster comedy “The Whole Town’s Talking” (10:25 p.m.), and his one collaboration with lifelong friend Katharine Hepburn, “Mary of Scotland” (12:20 a.m.). Also, sadly, his 1945 World War II masterpiece “They Were Expendable” (7:30 p.m.). One of the most beautifully photographed of all black-and-white ‘40s films, it’s been colorized--about which Ford (pictured) undoubtedly would have had something suitably unprintable to say. (TNT Thursday)