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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962)
Released By: Paramount Home Video   Rating: Not Rated   In Theaters: N/A
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Studio: Paramount Home Video
Genre: Western
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: John Ford
Language: English
Official Website: N/A
Theatrical Release: N/A
Home Video Release: N/A
Cast: James Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Vera Miles
Published ID: 3688
UPC: 097360611441, 097360611427, 097361423449,
Plot: Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks What is truth? in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished nobody Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, pilgrim Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the new civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. This is the West, sir, the reporter explains quietly. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
IDDateTimeTitleReviewHelpfulVotesTotalVotes
Great classic Western Movie
Added 11/18/2009

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.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Added 11/5/2009

This is an excellent movie and a classic. Everyone should see it at least once. It is a great asset to my movie collection.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Added 9/20/2009

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.

0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
Great even for the girls
Added 9/10/2009

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.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
The best western, period, in my book
Added 9/7/2009

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!

0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
Great classic Western Movie
Added 11/18/2009

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.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Added 11/5/2009

This is an excellent movie and a classic. Everyone should see it at least once. It is a great asset to my movie collection.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Added 9/20/2009

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.

0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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