L'homme qui tua Liberty Valance

Other reviewers, aside from seeing this as the end of the classic western, saw the plot as myth granting to one man that which was rightfully another's. I disagree. I see TMWSLV as a tale of a man stepping aside for the sake of a better man and a better world, at great personal cost.

I view Tom as someone who has lived a cynical life--kill it before it kills you. With the advent of Ransom he recognizes that there is a better way, and that Ransom, by defying evil from a position of weakness, is far braver than Tom, who has merely defied evil from a position of strength. Additionally, Ransom brings about an answer to the question "must the sword rule forever?" with a resounding "no," a denial that at first seems foolish to Tom, but who then realizes that things really should be Ransom's way.

And so Tom, knowing that one of them is the better man, allows that better man to receive the fame attendant to heroism; and in fact Ransom, for daring what Tom never did dare, is the true hero of the tale. Like all honest men must, Tom steps aside for the better man, knowing what it will cost him to do what is right.

An earlier reviewer said that the depiction of the politics was a parody; in fact, the politics of the early portion of the republics was even more lively (read: pugnacious) than is depicted in the film.

With Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne leading the way, it's easy to join the caravan of people who enjoy The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. This movie tells a compelling story about the changing atmosphere of West as well as the impact of legends. It's also full of interesting characters, including Lee Marvin as a despicable villain. I completely understand why this Western is considered a classic.

Anticipating Peckinpah and Eastwood, John Ford's Hamlet-like Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance deconstructs the legends of the Old West as a place where good always triumphed over evil and civilization overcame barbarism, a myth that he helped to create. Ford's 1962 film, based on the story by Dorothy M. Johnson, looks at how myths are created and, in its complex vision of the passing of an era, both pines for the lawless open spaces and eagerly anticipates the railroads bringing paved roads, schools, and law enforcement. The film contains the classic phrase "When truth becomes legend, print the legend", cited by a journalist who refuses to print newly discovered facts about an incident surrounded in myth that took place years before.

While there are stereotypes and all-too familiar stock characters, Liberty Valance succeeds because of strong performances by John Wayne as the macho embodiment of the old school, and Jimmy Stewart as the man who brings literacy and respect for law to the small town, though unconvincing as a young man just out of law school. Shot in black and white on a studio sound stage, the film opens with gray-haired Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) arriving at a small frontier town named Shinbone with his wife Hallie (Vera Miles). Met at the train station by a reporter eager for a story, Senator Stoddard tells him that he came to attend the funeral of an old friend, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne).

It is there that he reunites with Tom's dependable ranch hand Pompey (Woody Strode) and, since no one remembers Tom Doniphon, relates his story that takes us back to the time before the coming of the railroads. As Stoddard tells it, he was a young law graduate who arrived from the East in a stagecoach, following the advice "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country" first made in 1851 by John B. L. Soule, editor of the Terre Haute Express and incorrectly attributed to Horace Greeley. His welcome to Shinbone, however, is not what he had hoped. He is met by a sadistic bandit named Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) who robs the stagecoach and beats Stoddard after he tries to protect a female passenger.

Rancher Tom Doniphon finds him unconscious and brings him to Hallie, his girlfriend's house. When Stoddard recovers, he asks the Marshal Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) to make an arrest but Doniphon soon sets him straight about how justice is done in Shinbone - with the barrel of a gun. Without money, Stoddard works in the family restaurant as a dishwasher and also for the editor of the local newspaper, a man named Dutton Peabody (Edmond O'Brien) who is overly fond of the bottle.

Ransom develops an interest in Hallie and soon sets up classes to teach her and other locals how to read and write and also to convey the finer points of democracy and its institutions. Threatened by Valance and taunted by Doniphon, Stoddard goes against his ideals and learns how to shoot a gun with the help of Doniphon who "educates" him and shows him the error of his liberal ways.

After Stoddard and Peabody defeat Valance in an election to be representatives to the Sate Senate and an editorial appears contrasting the goals of statehood with the interests of Valance and the cattlemen, Dutton is severely beaten by Valance who then baits Stoddard into a gunfight. The showdown between Stoddard and Liberty is the centerpiece of the film and the shot heard round the West allows the victor to build an entire career based on the incident.

The legend of Shinbone will soon be joined by real-life icons Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill, and Kit Carson and the truth about the West with its corruption, misogyny, domination of the weak by the strong, and Native American genocide will be quietly buried. John Ford helped to romanticize the West and create the myth and, now in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he allows us to understand its melancholy and its lie.

Based on a short story by Dorothy M. Johnson, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE tells the story of Ransom Stoddard, an eastern attorney who has the misfortune to be victimized by notorious outlaw Liberty Valance during a stagecoach robbery. Left for dead, Stoddard is rescued by rancher Tom Doniphon and brought to the small town of Shinbone. Disgusted by the lawlessness of the area, he determines to use not a gun but the law itself to end Valance's reign of terror.

Released in 1962, VALANCE was among the last films directed by John Ford, who was more closely associated with the Western than any other Hollywood director--and in one sense it certainly has the classic "good guy vs. bad guy" plot one expects from from a western classic. But Ford was not a superficial artist, and VALANCE is a remarkably multi-layered film that plays much deeper than you might expect.

Tom Doniphon is all that is right about the west; Liberty Valance is all that is wrong. But both are part and parcel of the same code, a society in which law and order are merely words on the lips of a cowardly marshal, a world where a man either dominates through fear or is dominated by it. It is a world that is coming to an end--and Rance Stoddard is in the vanguard of the new civilization. Both Doniphon and Liberty must fall before Stoddard if the worst of the west is to be tamed.

The cast is superior. James Stewart (Stoddard) and John Wayne (Doniphon) have unexpected chemistry on screen, and Lee Marvin (Valance) is easily one of the most unpleasant black-hats you could ever want to see in a western, vicious to the point of being psychotic. Supporting players Vera Miles, Andy Devine, Edmund O'Brien, and Woody Strode are equally fine. Although the script is occasionally a shade overwrought, it is laced with a very fine irony and sense of loss, and John Ford brings all the various pieces together without beating the viewer to death in the process.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This was a film that my class had to watch in a High School Literature class, so it has been a little while since I watched it. Although it is classified as a western film, it does not really follow through with what most would consider a western; it takes place in the western states, and the characters are cowboys, but it is a civilised film following the different characters and their fate. I could not find anything to fault with this film whatsoever. It was engaging and entertaining and was shown to us in school as an example of good film-making. I cannot agree more with that comment. I think that everyone should watch this film and think about what this film teaches.