Directed by John Ford

«I knew he was dying and that if I didn’t drive down to see him before leaving for Rome to make the new picture there was a good chance he would be gone before we returned. It was the middle of June, 1973. About six months earlier the Fords had sold their house in Bel Air and moved to one in Palm Desert. I don’t believe it was really something they were anxious to do, but economic considerations prevailed. […] I had phoned him a few times since the move and spoke with him briefly the night the American Film Institute gave the director their first Life Achievement Award and president Nixon presented him with the Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor our country can bestow.» (Peter Bogdanovich)
A taped interview should have run like a thread through this documentary but Ford’s taciturnity made space for others, like Orson Welles, to comment on the grandmaster of Western.