The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Director: John Ford John Ford

Overview

Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, "pilgrim" Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the "new" civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. "This is the West, sir, " the reporter explains quietly. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/26/2017
UPC:	0032429283665
Original Release:	1962
Rating:	NR
Source:	PARAMOUNT
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	2:03:00
Sales rank:	1,333

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

John Wayne	Tom Doniphon
James Stewart	Ransom Stoddard
Vera Miles	Hallie Stoddard
Lee Marvin	Liberty Valance
Edmond O'Brien	Dutton Peabody
Andy Devine	Link Appleyard
Ken Murray	Doc Willoughby
John Carradine	Maj. Cassius Starbuckle
Jeanette Nolan	Nora Ericson
John Qualen	Peter Ericson
Willis Bouchey	Jason Tully,Jason Tully
Carleton Young	Maxwell Scott
Woody Strode	Pompey
Denver Pyle	Amos Carruthers
O.Z. Whitehead	Ben Carruthers
Paul Birch	Mayor Winder
Joseph Hoover	Hasbrouck
Anna Lee	Passenger
Charles Seel	President, Election Council
Leonard Baker	Man
Larry Finley	Bar X Man
Dan Borzage	Townsman,Townsman
Ralph Volkie	Townsman
Charles Morton	Drummer
Edward Jaurequi	Drummer
Brian 'Slim' Hightower	Shotgun
Jack Williams	Henchman
Chuck Hayward	Henchman
Chuck Roberson	Henchman
Mario Arteaga	Henchman
George Fisher	Kaintuck the Drunk
Ted Mapes	Highpockets
Jack Pennick	Jack the Bartender
Bob Morgan	Roughrider
Earle Hodgins	Clue Dumfries,Clue Dumfries
Montie Montana	Politician on Horseback
Strother Martin	Floyd
Lee Van Cleef	Reese
Robert F. Simon	Handy Strong
Stuart Holmes	Actor
Dorothy Phillips	Actor
Buddy Roosevelt	Actor
Gertrude Astor	Actor
Eva Novak	Actor
Slim Talbot	Actor
William Henry	Actor
Blackie Whiteford	Actor
Helen Gibson	Actor
Major Sam Harris	Actor,Convention Committee Member
Jack Kenney	Actor
James Steward	Actor
Charles Akins	Townsman
Robert Donner	Actor
Duke Fishman	Townsman
Ben Frommer	Cantina Bartender
Herman Hack	Townsman
Chuck Hamilton	Statehood Audience Member
Edmond O´Brien	Actor
Robert Simon	Handy Strong
Cyril J. Mockridge	Composer,Composer
Alfred Newman	Composer

Technical Credits

Willis Goldbeck

James Warner Bellah

Dorothy M. Johnson

John Ford	Director,Producer
Willis Goldbeck	Producer,Screenwriter
James Warner Bellah	Screenwriter
Farciot Edouart	Special Effects
John Epper	Stunts
Charles Grenzbach	Sound Effects
Dorothy M. Johnson	Screenwriter
Jack Williams	Stunts
Philip Mitchell	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

In his elegy to the Western hero, John Ford reveals the facts while printing the western legend. To examine what was at stake in transforming the western wilderness into a civilized garden, Ford sets up the opposition between James Stewart's Eastern lawyer Ranse Stoddard and Lee Marvin's brutal outlaw Liberty Valance, with John Wayne's archetypal hero Tom Doniphon forced to intervene. While Tom takes Stoddard's side in favor of the greater good, the spread of civilization comes at his own expense. Stoddard has to come to terms with the fact that the legendary words that fuel his success erase the truth of the genuine charismatic heroes; as a place of literary and cinematic legend, the West has no room for such veracity. Shot in black-and-white with few exteriors, Liberty Valance's melancholy nocturnal atmosphere matches the story's suggestion that the West's glory days have passed. Though not as highly regarded when it was released, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since come to be seen as one of Ford's greatest Westerns, and a key predecessor to such late '60s-'70s Western eulogies as The Wild Bunch (1969) and The Shootist (1976).

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola