John Wayne is once again excellent as a ‘dark’ character without a future, Lee Marvin is the first villain since old War Chief Scar bit the dust to really stand up to John Wayne;

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has been a movie to enjoy (or jeer) the performances of an over-aged cast, particularly John Wayne. He was a slightly confusing figure for us back in the early 1970s. Few film students were willing to accept him as the very good actor he was, yet we admired his total command of every scene. One extended clash between Wayne and the bad guys takes place in a restaurant where everybody seems to be eating slabs of beef weighing at least four pounds. It’s a marvel of seemly effortless style – slimy bad guy Strother Martin volunteers to pick up a disputed T-Bone, and John Wayne’s smiling hero kicks him across the room without batting an eye. Still, we’d make fun of Wayne’s peculiar way of saying his lines, even as we realized that we had been invested in his screen image from an early age.

John Ford’s postwar films were all over the map in terms of quality, but his themes were pretty consistent, especially in his westerns. He was the undisputed king of film directors during the heyday of the ‘auteur theory,’ and the worship of past masters like Orson Welles has insured that his reputation hasn’t fallen. By 1962 Ford’s career was really

all but finished, but he continued to push through personal projects. The ones with John Wayne did well.

Film critics have always applauded Liberty Valance for having a profound message, wrapped up in the question of whether we were supposed to print the Fact, or ‘The Legend.’ It at least gave genre critics something to chew on, usually combined with the old “turning the desert into a garden” dream. The show offers an arresting story and sharp characters, and an affecting, emotional finish. There are certainly no regulations about what movie westerns do with the facts — John Ford listened to Wyatt Earp’s subjective version of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and then spun his movie story out of pure wishful thinking.

In Arizona, early in the 20th century, congressman Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) returns with his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) to the tiny town of Shinbone to bury an old friend, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). In respect for Doniphon, Rance tells reporters the truth about how he found fame as ‘the man who shot Liberty Valance.’ Many years before, as a dishwasher and aspiring lawyer, Ransom had encouraged Shinbone to stand up against the highwayman Valance (Lee Marvin), a thug who enforcing the will of cattle interests trying to block statehood for the territory. Ransom also attracted the affection of Hallie Ericson, much to the ire of local stalwart Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), whose jealous rage was more dangerous to Ransom than the wrath of Valance and his scum henchmen. But things turned out in a wholly ironic way…

Highly entertaining, if a bit slow moving, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a delight for those who wish to celebrate John Wayne. His fractured diction, theatrical pauses and shorthand gestures make this the key film for Wayne imitators, Pilgrim. Wayne interacts gracefully with a number of acting styles, and only James Stewart stands out as being possibly a bit too much for his role. Stewart is constantly emoting, pumping in the energy to give the impression of youth. He’s back in tongue-tied Mr. Smith filibuster mode. The truth be told, Stewart is absurdly too old to play the role of a young lawyer out from the East. But then again, so is Wayne, if we want to get technical. I believe the word is that Liberty Valance was filmed in B&W because of its relatively elderly cast.

The western genre doesn’t even begin to come into focus without the foundation of Ford’s West; the movements that came afterward are a reaction to his pictures. Sergio Leone started with abstract cynicism but eventually made his masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West as an anti-capitalist response to the world of Ford. Sam Peckinpah’s major westerns deconstruct the John Ford world, with frequent direct quotes from his films.

John Ford IS America, they used to say. And they’re right, as his sentiments smooth over the rough edges of American society. Enjoying movies doesn’t mean that we must agree with them. Ford is honest to his own way of thinking in Valance. His best films have a ring of truth and pride that comes from clan loyalty. They are still the best filmic vehicles for understanding the American mindset, which has a strange relationship with its western myths. Cozying up to these myths is the conservative’s way of finding peace and rest in the safe and secure past, where the big issues are already resolved and controversy is the tool of petty trouble-makers.

I personally place The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in the same category as the big western Shane. George Stevens’ beautiful film is a delight to watch, even if there isn’t a fresh idea in it. With the exception of a couple of scenes, Ford’s movie is dull-looking, and I consider its main theme to be bogus, an excuse for the old guard to hold on to outmoded ways because of tradition. T

he movie is considered Ford’s big political statement about history, but his message is not very constructive. “This is the West, sir. When the truth contradicts your self-serving illusions, print lies.”

Yet Valance is a great entertainment, with rich characterizations. Ford’s direction enhances the drama, and John Wayne is once again excellent as a ‘dark’ character without a future. Lee Marvin is the first villain since old War Chief Scar bit the dust to really stand up to John Wayne; the casting combo was so good that Ford made another film with them.

Paramount’s Blu-ray of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is being distributed by Warner Home Video. I’ve never seen a bad-looking copy of this B&W feature, with its wide compositions, mostly flat lighting (the flashback is a major exception) and overall gray look. Paramount’s 35mm prints showed no appreciable grain whatsoever, a quality retained in this handsome transfer. The audio is crystal clear as well. It’s probably for the better that John Ford didn’t use the Gene Pitney AM radio hit composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David; I’ve not read that it was ever seriously planned to be part of the film.

Except for the high-priced Wayne and Stewart, this must have been one cheap movie. The plain-wrap western street set was still standing on Hollywood’s Paramount as late as 1977, when I was attending studio screenings for a couple of years. This transfer is so clear, we can see the blank studio wall behind the little houses along main street, pretending to be the sky! Ford uses his camera much the same as he did in the 1930s, keeping his editing invisible until he has a major dramatic point to underscore.

We’ve always been bothered by the film’s last angle of a train going away from the camera. It’s a wholly atypical hand-held shot, which looks even jerkier because ‘The End’ is superimposed over it. I’ve actually read a critique of Liberty Valance theorizing that Ford did this intentionally, as a way of saying that, without the great men who built the West, the future is going to be ‘unstable.’ I’ll bet that Ford’s editor lacked a planned ending shot, and threw in the best angle he could find.

by Glenn Erickson

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