The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Director:

John Ford

Writers:

James Warner Bellah (screenplay) and
Willis Goldbeck (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

22 April 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | Western

Tagline:

Together For The First Time - James Stewart - John Wayne - in the masterpiece of four-time Academy Award winner John Ford

Plot:

A senator, who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw, returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed.

Plot Keywords:

Senator | Friend | Funeral | Outlaw | Stagecoach

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 3 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

John Wayne	...	Tom Doniphon
James Stewart	...	Ransom Stoddard
Vera Miles	...	Hallie Stoddard
Lee Marvin	...	Liberty Valance
Edmond O'Brien	...	Dutton Peabody
Andy Devine	...	Marshal Link Appleyard
Ken Murray	...	Doc Willoughby
John Carradine	...	Maj. Cassius Starbuckle
Jeanette Nolan	...	Nora Ericson
John Qualen	...	Peter Ericson
Willis Bouchey	...	Jason Tully - Conductor
Carleton Young	...	Maxwell Scott
Woody Strode	...	Pompey
Denver Pyle	...	Amos Carruthers
Strother Martin	...	Floyd

Runtime:

123 min | Brazil:124 min | West Germany:113 min (cut version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Spain:T | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Australia:PG | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved | Netherlands:12 | Brazil:12 | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | South Korea:12 | UK:U | West Germany:12 (w)

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Several reasons have been put forward for the film being in black and white. John Ford once claimed it added to the tension, however others involved with production said Paramount was cutting costs and so they had to make the movie on sound stages at the studio. Without the budget restraints, Ford would have been in Monument Valley using Technicolor stock. It has also been suggested that since both John Wayne and James Stewart were playing characters thirty years younger than they actually were (Wayne was 54 when the movie was filmed in the autumn of 1961 and Stewart was 53), the movie needed to be in black and white because they would never have got away with it in color. The age difference was particularly noticeable in Stewart's case, since he was playing a young lawyer who had only just graduated from law school and had moved West without even practicing law back East.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the reverse shot during the climactic political rally, the opposing parties switch sides.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Ransom Stoddard: [descending from railway carriage and consulting pocket watch] Thanks, Jason. On time.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl (2006) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Main Theme

Ford's chamber Western

Some films are slow to give up their secrets first time round and need some time to elapse before they are revalued. An opportunity to see "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" after a gap of several years turned out to be an unexpectedly rewarding experience. It had never been one of my favourite Ford films; indeed I was always puzzled why many rate it so highly in the canon. Its rather plain black-and-white visuals smack of low production values and it has little of the grand operatic sweep of many of his other Westerns. I can now see that I was rather missing the point: "Liberty Valance" is that rare thing, a chamber Western, a quiet and elegiac reappraisal of the legends of the West made almost at the end of Ford's creative career with "Cheyenne Autumn" the only Western still to come. A U.S. senator played by James Stewart returns with his wife (Vera Miles at her most attractive) to the small Western town, where, as a young man, he tied to set up a law business, to attend the funeral of the man (John Wayne) who saved his life when he tried to rid the community of its villain, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's Westerns had always been the stuff of legend. Now, towards the end of his career, he began to take the legend apart. The hero is not the one who goes on to become one of the town's most illustrious sons but the quiet man who fades into the background. It needs more than idealism to overcome evil, the film seems to be saying, Brute force has to be countered by brute force; moreover, true worth is not always rewarded or recognised by society. It is a bleak message that Ford is giving us. By homing in on character and plot to a far greater extent than usual, he gives us an experience that is often more akin to filmed theatre than cinema. There are unusually long sequences in studio built interiors, the diner, the bar and a theatre where an election adoption meeting is taking place. Outdoor sequences are few and far between. Instead of a large collective enemy such as marauding Indian tribes there is just the one baddy and his pair of sycophants. The pivotal action scene where Liberty Valance receives his just deserts takes place in a dark street and has none of the climactic sense of drama to be found in such shootouts as "My Darling Clementine" of Zinnemann's "High Noon". I can at last see that those very limitations that for so so long prevented me from appreciating "Liberty Valance" give it a sense of concentration and strength that the Western rarely achieves.