The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Directed by	John Ford
Produced by	Willis Goldbeck John Ford
Written by	James Warner Bellah Willis Goldbeck Dorothy M. Johnson
Starring	John Wayne James Stewart Lee Marvin
Music by	Cyril J. Mockridge Alfred Newman
Cinematography	William H. Clothier
Editing by	Otho Lovering
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	April 22, 1962
Running time	123 min.
Language	English
Budget	$3.2M (US, est.)
IMDb profile

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a classic Western movie made in 1962, starring James Stewart, John Wayne and Lee Marvin, and directed by John Ford.

1 Plot
2 Reception
3 Billing
4 Cast
5 Trivia
6 Quotes
7 External links and references

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens on preparations for a funeral. A U.S. Senator and his wife have come back to the small town of Shinbone, Arizona. The senator is prevailed upon by a newsman to explain why he has come to bury an apparent nobody. The senator explains and the film unfolds in flashback.

Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) is an attorney who believes in law and order, but refuses to carry a gun. His uneasy friendship with Tom Doniphon results in an unusual respect for one another. Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) is a gunslinger, who believes there is no law and one "needs a gun in these parts."

When the outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) comes to town, he is unruly, causes disturbances in saloons and restaurants, is feared by the people of the territory, and embarrasses Stoddard repeatedly in front of the woman who Stoddard wishes to court, Hallie, who is also loved by Doniphon. Valance fears only one man: Tom Doniphon. In one instance, while causing problems in a restaurant, Liberty trips Ransom causing him to drop a steak dinner. Tom quickly jumps back to his feet to inform Valance that it was his steak that Ransom dropped on the floor and orders Liberty to pick it up. Valance thinks about drawing on Tom but Tom's steely gaze makes Valance back down.

Stoddard, however, is a different story; and Valance taunts him to no end. Stoddard finds that the only way to settle differences with Valance is through violence; he is challenged to a shootout. Stoddard is completely unskilled with a gun and no match for the infamous gunfighter Valance. But in what seems like one miraculous shot, Valance is the one felled in the duel. Stoddard can't believe he actually killed Liberty Valance; and yet because it appears to be so, he instantly becomes a hero. However, Tom Doniphon reveals in private to Stoddard that, believing Valance would almost certainly kill him, and out of Doniphon's desire to keep the woman he loves from hurting due to Stoddard's death, Tom, while hidden in an alleyway and armed with a rifle, has shot Valance at the moment of gunplay. Stoddard, however, continues to live the lie.

Stoddard will forever be known as "the man who shot Liberty Valance", reaping the political rewards and hero status accorded him, honors that he deserves, but not for the reason he is awarded them. For years he grapples with his secret as he builds a political career and helps civilize the West. Tom Doniphon continues living a modest life, never revealing to anyone that Stoddard is a fake. He does so for the sake of the woman he loves, Hallie, who has married Stoddard instead of him after the gun battle. Years later, Tom Doniphon dies, after leading a lonely secluded life, having loved her from a distance to the end. Stoddard has told the story to the local newspaper editor, who refuses to publish it. "When the legend becomes fact," he says, "print the legend." The movie ends with the now-aged Senator Stoddard and Hallie returning to Washington, both melancholy about the cost of the lie that has allowed them their great fortune together. A train conductor promises special service, since "Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance."

[edit] Reception

The film was an instant hit when released in April of 1962, thanks to its classic story and popular stars John Wayne and James Stewart. At the 1963 Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Costume Design for Edith Head, one of the few westerns to ever be nominated for the award. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has continued its popularity through repeated television broadcasts and the rental market. It is also widely considered, along with The Searchers and My Darling Clementine, to be one of director John Ford's best Westerns.

[edit] Billing

James Stewart was given top billing over John Wayne in the movie's posters and the previews (trailers) shown in theatres and on television prior to the film's release, but in the film itself, however, Wayne is given top billing over Stewart. Their names are displayed on pictures of signposts, one after the other, with Wayne's name shown first with his sign mounted slightly higher on its post than Stewart's. John Ford remarked in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich that he made it apparent to the audience that Vera Miles' character had never gotten over Tom Doniphon because "I wanted Wayne to be the lead."

[edit] Cast

John Wayne as Tom Doniphon
James Stewart as Ransom Stoddard
Vera Miles as Hallie Stoddard
Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance
Edmond O'Brien as Dutton Peabody
Andy Devine as Marshal Link Appleyard
Ken Murray as Doc Willoughby
John Carradine as Maj. Cassius Starbuckle
Jeanette Nolan as Nora Ericson
John Qualen as Peter Ericson
Woody Strode as Pompey
Denver Pyle as Amos Carruthers
Strother Martin as Floyd
Lee Van Cleef as Reese
George "Shug" Fisher as Kaintuck
Ted Mapes as Highpockets

[edit] Trivia

The constant references to the "Picket Wire" in the movie were not about a prairie fence. "Picket Wire" was the slang name for the Purgatoire River in southeastern Colorado.

Even though a date was never stated, it can be assumed that the action takes place in 1875, the year before Colorado achieved statehood. (However, the flag in the schoolroom scene has 38 stars, placing the movie in the time after Colorado was added to the Union, some time from 1877 to 1890.)

Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote a title song for the movie, also called "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". This was a top 10 hit for Gene Pitney, but it was never used in the movie. Instead, the main titles contain an original theme by the film's composer.

In certain scenes involving the character of Hallie, Ford used part of Alfred Newman's score from John Ford's earlier movie Young Mr. Lincoln, the "Ann Rutledge" theme. Ford told Peter Bogdanovich in the latter's book John Ford that the theme evoked the same meaning, lost love, in both movies.

James Taylor covered the Hal David / Burt Bacharach song "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" on his 1985 album That's Why I'm Here.

Before leaving the bar to meet Ransom Stoddard, Liberty Valance won a hand of poker with a pair of Aces and a pair of Eights. This is the famous "Dead man's hand," so called because it was the hand held by Wild Bill Hickock when he was murdered by Jack McCall in Deadwood, South Dakota, on August 2, 1876.

[edit] Quotes

Maxwell Scott: "This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Liberty Valance: "You lookin' for trouble, Doniphon?"

Tom Doniphon: "You aimin' to help me find some?"

Tom Doniphon: "It ain't mannerly out west."

Tom Doniphon: "It was cold blooded murder...but I can live with that."

Pompey: (Reciting from the Declaration of Independence) "We hold these truths to be self-evident that, uh, that..."

Ransom Stoddard: "That all men are created equal."

Pompey nods.

Ransom Stoddard: "That's fine Pompey."

Pompey: "I knew that Mr. Rans, but I just plum forgot it."

Ransom Stoddard: "That's all right Pompey. A lot of people forget that part of it."

(The ironic part of this scene is that Pompey is a black man, (blacks were emancipated in 1865) and is standing under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is the source of the "Pilgrim" phrase that is commonly used in John Wayne impersonations; Wayne's character addresses James Stewart's character as "Pilgrim" 23 times in the film. Though part of the "Wayne" persona for many impressionists, Wayne only used the term in one other film, McLintock!, and then only once.