| The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Paramount Centennial Collection) |
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Product Details
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That's more than the code of a newspaperman in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; it's practically the operating credo of director John Ford, the most honored of American filmmakers. In this late film from a long career, Ford looks at the civilizing of an Old West town, Shinbone, through the sad memories of settlers looking back. In the town's wide-open youth, two-fisted Westerner John Wayne and tenderfoot newcomer James Stewart clash over a woman (Vera Miles) but ultimately unite against the notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's nostalgia for the past is tempered by his stark approach, unusual for the visual poet of Stagecoach and The Searchers. The two heavyweights, Wayne and Stewart, are good together, with Wayne the embodiment of rugged individualism and Stewart the idealistic prophet of the civilization that will eventually tame the Wild West. This may be the saddest Western ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose. --Robert Horton
Product Reviews
 (5 stars) - Great classic Western Movie
All I need to say is, this is one of the many great classic westerns. Jimmy Stewart has always been a great actor, I especially loved him in westerns, his slow drawl when speaking is what drew me to him in the first place. There are no more actors like him. He and so many others of his time have gone to another place and time. Thank goodness we have their movies to remind us, that they still live on in our hearts and in our movies.
(5 stars) - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
This is an excellent movie and a classic. Everyone should see it at least once. It is a great asset to my movie collection.
(5 stars) - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
John Wayne and James Stewart made a very interesting pairing in films. Their last appearance was in "The Shootist." James Stewart was a World War II hero in the real sense. John Wayne, despite all of his war movies, was not a veteran. Likewise Lee Marvin was also a military veteran.
In this movie John Ford did to westerns what Alfred Hitchcock did to horror. The audience is not simply spoon-fed a typical movie with a simple plot. At the end of the show, there are many points to contemplate. Too bad it was not produced in color.
(5 stars) - Great even for the girls
I do not normally like westerns but Jimmy Stewart is becoming one of my favorite actors, including in the westerns. This movie has much suspense and is not boring. It keeps you engaged in it and has some very lovely romance too. What surprised me, however, was that the movie began with the end and went back to the beginning to tell the whole story. That you need to know, but it is a very good movie.
(5 stars) - The best western, period, in my book
For me, this film is the greatest western of all. Now, that's a matter of individual taste, and yours may be different. But the themes of justice, deception, good and evil, grief and loss, mourning the past and looking to a new future are all so well balanced that nothing else has been able to knock this off the top spot in the genre for me.
Jimmy Stewart is Ransom Stoddard, a young idealist lawyer arriving in the lawless town of Shinbone in the old west, where if you want justice you had better claim it for yourself through skill with a gun. He immediately runs afoul of Liberty Valance (spectacularly played by Lee Marvin), the worst of the local outlaws, and indirectly befriends Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), who by chance also aspires, like Ransom, to get the girl in the picture, Hallie (Vera Miles).
Eventually Liberty Valance calls Rance out for a gunfight in the street, which is the pivotal event in the movie. After all, it's called "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" for a reason! But believe me, the gunfight isn't the end of the film.
There is a strong theme of the "common man" vs. the rich and powerful. The story is set in the context of deciding whether the local territory (which remains unnamed, but could be something like an Arizona, Nevada or New Mexico) should remain a territory or become a state in the union. The local ranchers are against statehood, because they want to continue using public lands for free to graze and water their cattle. They hire outlaws like Liberty Valance to intimidate the local populace and threaten that terrible things will happen to them if they vote in favor of statehood.
John Ford hits all the right notes. Good triumphs over evil, but at a tremendous personal cost. The territory marches inevitably to statehood, bringing new progress to Shinbone but killing its former, freer way of life. Jimmy Stewart's character does tremendous good, but must live a lie to do so. Terrific!
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