By Lee Pfeiffer
Among the gems recently released by Paramount as part of the studio's Centennial special editions DVDs is John Ford's 1962 classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.Count me among those who consider the film a masterpiece, but upon its initial release, the movie was dismissed as morose and claustrophobic by short-sighted critics who couldn't see beyond Ford's penchant for filming in the great outdoors. The plot finds James Stewart as Ransom Stoddard, a tenderfoot lawyer who goes west in the naive belief the populace will welcome his offer to bring civility and legal representation to the residents of a small town. Before he even gets to his destination, his stagecoach is robbed by the vicious bandit Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who takes special delight in beating and humiliating the lawyer. Stoddard is nursed back to health by sympathetic townspeople, primarily Hallie (Vera Miles) and her cynical, macho boyfriend Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Tom sizes up Stoddard's abilities to fend for himself and advises him to leave town immediately. However, Stoddard is determined to bring the rule of law to the town and stubbornly stays on - until Valance challenges him to a gun duel from which only one man will emerge alive.
In the winter of his great career, Ford had grown cynical himself regarding the nobility of the Old West and the characters he immortalized in his films. Liberty Valance debunks all the mythology. Stoddard, who is the heroic figure, is far from the he-men usually showcased in Ford's films. He's brave, but inept. The gunman figure personified by Wayne is cranky and prone to self-pity when Hallie rejects him for Stoddard. The town sheriff (hilariously played by Andy Devine) is an inept coward and fool and the local newspaper editor (Edmond O'Brien) has high principals, but is generally too drunk to act upon them. Ford often made his villains charismatic and somewhat sympathetic, but Valance is a psychopath with no redeeming features.Ford intentionally eschewed his beloved vistas of Monument Valley to film what is, in essence, a stage play. The action is mostly confined to a few sets and the black and white cinematography seems to be used as a device to keep the few exteriors from being a distraction. This is a story about people, not places.
If the film has a flaw it's the fact that the two male leads are too old for their parts, as written. Stewart was well into middle-age, so its a bit strange to see him playing a young up-and-coming lawyer. Similarly, Wayne is a bit long in the tooth to be pining away over the loss of a girlfriend as though he is a heartbroken teenager. Wayne always griped that he felt lost in the film, with nothing to do because Stewart is the central character. (Wayne took second billing to Stewart in the credits, although he was a bigger box-office attraction at the time.)Â In fact, it is Wayne's Doniphon who is arguably the catalyst for all the events that unfold. Despite the distraction of their ages, Wayne and Stewart perform magnificently together and one bemoans the fact that they only made one other film together (The Shootist).The movie boasts a dream cast of supporting players, many of who came from Ford's fabled stock company: the great Woody Strode, John Carradine (whose over-the-top cameo is supremely entertaining), Strother Martina and Lee Van Cleef as Liberty's scummy henchmen, Willis Bouchey, Ken Murray and John Qualen. The story is told in flashbacks and the final sequence in which Stoddard comes clean about the real story behind his ascent to fame is wonderfully written and enacted. Despite his new cynicism toward the West, Ford could still ring a tear or two from the audience, as evidenced by his use of sentimental music in the last scene.
Paramount's outstanding DVD release features 2 discs packed with bonus extras including scene-specific comments by James Stewart, Lee Marvin and Ford culled from Peter Bognanovich's vintage interviews. Bogdanovich also discusses the film on on the feature length commentary track. There are short featurettes examining every aspect of the film's production and marketing and feature Bogdanovich, critic Ricard Schickel and Dan Ford, John Ford's grandson and biographer. There is a wonderful gallery of production stills and an original trailer (which amusingly plays up Gene Pitney's pop hit recording of the title song, which is not heard in the film). Ford was dismissive of his own work (as evidenced by the interviews in this set) and he loathed examination of his films, feeling it was pretentious. However, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a major work by a great American director- whether Ford would like to admit it or not.
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