The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Runtime: 123 minutes

Directed by: John Ford

Starring: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien

From: Paramount

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

This was another DVR viewing; a few days ago I recorded this off of HDNet Movies (a channel I had never received w/ my previous cable provider) so it saved me from having to stream it. More John Ford films should be seen by me anyhow so it was an easy choice to spend two hours with this.

James Stewart and John Wayne in the same movie is pretty rad, and their characters are exactly as you'd expect: Jimmy as a lawyer from “out East” moving to the Wild West and The Duke as a manly cowboy who always refers to Stewart as “pilgrim”, allowing millions of people after seeing this to have a catchphrase for their bad Wayne impersonations. James immediately runs into despicable bad guy Liberty Valance, and as it's played by Lee Marvin, he did a great job of being a loathsome villain. As Liberty has two henchmen (Strother Martin & Lee Van Cleef) and the sheriff of the town is played by Andy Devine-that character can nicely be described as “an ineffectual fool”-that is why Valance is an unstoppable menace. As it's the title, yes someone does shoot Liberty; how that is done is not quite like you'd expect from an earlier Western, even those directed by Ford himself.

The movie is a mature piece of work from a veteran director which covers thoughtful topics concerning the Wild West... chiefly the mythology/myth-making that occurs with heroic acts and the changing of the West with such acts as the territories forming states and the masses having education finally brought to them. Much of the movie is a flashback as it is bookended by Old Jimmy returning to town for a funeral and tells a story to several people, most of whom he knew before. It has a nice cast and many familiar faces: John Carradine, Denver Pyle, Edmond O'Brien, Woody Strode, etc. But I do have to note in particular Vera Miles and the spitfire character she played. Aside from her causing conflict between the two lead men just from her presence, it was a great performance from her.

Like I said, it is a more mature Western than you might expect from the genre, or even perhaps the director... at least compared to early in his career. No matter what you think of The Duke on screen or off, this has to be one of the best movies he was ever in and it is a role that at times was rather atypical for him. It has lovely black and white cinematography (there have been various reasons rumored why it was not in color; the amount of bloodshed it has was probably easier to get away with a monochromatic look) and this is a must for genre fans even if can be described as a “deconstruction.”