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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance [VHS]

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This review refers to the Paramount ("Widescreen Collection") DVD of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"...

For over 40 years this western has stood the test of time. It's one that I could watch anytime,a great story,with a tremendous cast and a legendary director. I was thrilled to see it on DVD and even more so when I saw how good it looked.

Directed by John Ford, it stars, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin and Vera Miles.Stewart plays "Ransom Stoddard", an Eastern type bookish lawyer, who arrives in "Shinbone" naive to the code of the west. After witnessing the terroristic ways of one bad hombre, Liberty Valance(Lee Marvin),and his group of thugs, Ransom plans to rid the town of this menace, but is gonna do it legal like. At the same time, he is in competition for the fairest lady in town, with another good but tough guy...John Wayne.

The story of Liberty Valance's demise is told by Stoddard after returning to town decades later.He is now an esteemed Senator, and has been a legend in his own time for freeing Shinbone from the hold Valance had on it. But what is the real story of what happened that fateful day? The story unfolds captivatingly.

A great DVD. This 1962 Black and White looks crisp and clear,it is presented in widescreen, and is enhanced with Dolby Digital 5.1 or may be viewed in the restored mono. Other than a theatrical trailer, you wont find any special features, although this is a film you can just kick back and enjoy for itself. There are English subtitles for hearing impaired.

As I said it has a tremendous cast and you can never go wrong with a John Ford Western. But the cast doesn't end with the major stars. Here are some other notables to look for. Edmond O'Brien, Andy Devine, Lee Van Cleef, Ken Murray, John Carradine, Jeanette Nolan, Woody Strode, Denver Pyle and Strother Martin.....WOW!

Westerns are my favorite genre, I probably have more Westerns in my collection then anything else.This one is a more subdued storyline than most shoot em ups, but is one of my personal favorites. I consider it right up there with "Shane" and "High Noon". If you love Westerns, this is a great addition to your collection.

Happy Trails.....Laurie

also recommended:
The Searchers / Stagecoach
Great Hollywood Westerns: Man Without A Star
Great American Western V.10, The

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is without a doubt, one of John Wayne's best western films. If you don't own this film, I highly recommend it. It is fun watching over and over again as the script is solid and engaging, and the acting performances among the three principle stars is more than superb!

"Vallance" is Oscar winning Director John Ford's last best effort in western film making. He put together an all-star cast and the cast put out for Ford as well, with stunning performances from John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Lee Marvin. Wayne's acting is Academy Award material. He brings a depth of character to the Tom Doniphon role that will have you remembering his performance long after the film ends. In one scene, a drunken and despondent Wayne returns to the home he has built for his future wife Hallie. In a rage, he lights a lantern and sets fire to the new structure, with the intention of burning it, and himself, to the ground. The scene is riveting, and the expressions and movements of Wayne are some of the greatest ever filmed.

Although John Wayne is the "star" of this film, the film in reality has three stars, Wayne, James Stewart, and Lee Marvin. Jimmy Stewart plays Ransom Stoddard, an idealistic lawyer who comes to bring legal law to the west. Stoddard is introducted to the west by none other than the terorist outlaw Liberty Valance, who robs the stage Stoddard is on. When Stoddard tries to resist the robbery of an elderly fellow passenger, Valance, played by Lee Marvin savagely beats him with a whip, leaving him to die. Wayne's character, Tom Doniphon, happens upon Stoddard and brings him to town. This sets the stage for the rest of the movie, as Stoddard tries to bring Liberty Valance to justice.

Lee Marvin's "Valance" is yet another superb acting performance. Whenever Marvin is on screen, there is tension and conflict, as Marvin plays the out of control Valance to the hilt. Marvin's acting rivals and matches those of Wayne and Stewart, making this a film that you will want to watch over and over again, for the acting performances alone.

The film hosts a fine supporting cast. Vera Miles very adequately plays Hallie, a young girl who has to decide upon the man she will spend the rest of her life with - Wayne or Stewart. Andy Devine provides comic relief as the bumbling overweight sheriff who avoids conflict any way he can.

Although a bit old in real life for the roles they play, both Stewart and Wayne excel in their parts to such an extent that the ages of the actors are forgotten. The plot is satisfying and in the end we finally learn who REALLY shot Liberty Valence, and what the death of Valance has on the lives of the characters.

In my list of the best westerns of all-time, "Liberty Valance" is certainly in the top 10. An added bonus is that this film can be viewed by the entire family; my boys especially have enjoyed the film. You will not regret buying this DVD.

Jim Konedog Koenig

Critics of John Wayne have often said that he only ever played one kind of Western character: a crude, tough-as-nails, trigger-happy, and irrational man who mistreated women but got their love anyway. Well, this movie should silence those critics. Wayne plays a gunslinger all right, but the character here (Tom Doniphan) is a unique one, to be sure.

Also starring in this movie is James Stewart, who plays a young lawyer coming to bring 'law and order' to the West. He manages to get tangled up with a notorious villain, Liberty Vallance (Lee Marvin), and from there he and Doniphan's paths cross until SOMEBODY shoots Liberty.

This is a great film by a great Director (John Ford). It leaves you with something to think about, and will definitely not allow you to think of the Duke's character (Doniphan) as a flat, one-sided gunman. In fact, this is Ford's idea of a sort of Western tragedy, and it is a good one. For storyline and plot, there are few John Wayne movies that top the Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance.

Undoubtedly, one of the finest westerns ever made...this exquisite example of film making is proof positive that not every western is a simplistic plot about "cowboys and indians".

John Ford's stylish film is a brilliant psychological story about very different personalities and their violent meeting in the town of Shinbone. James Stewart plays the young, idealistic lawyer Ransom Stoddard...heading west in the hope of bringing law and justice to an untamed land. Enter Lee Marvin as the cold blooded and ruthless outlaw, Liberty Valance, ruling Shinbone and the surrounding territories by his own laws. And finally, John Wayne as the strong, iron-willed and well meaning Tom Doniphon....the only man with the courage to stand up to Liberty Valance.

Ford's movie is additionally supported by several dynamic character actors...Andy Devine as the cowardly sheriff Link Appleyard, Edmond O'Brien is simply brilliant as habitually drunk news paper editor Dutton Peabody, Woody Strode as Doniphon's loyal ranch-hand Pompy, plus the villainous duo of Lee van Cleef & Strother Martin.

What makes this movie so outstanding is that it appeals on so many levels....as an adventure, as a love story, as a tragedy, and ultimately as a tale well told. It moves with such eloquence and style, and the viewer is carried through each layer of this complex story with precision and feeling.

This is easily one of my most watched and most enjoyed films, and a moving reminder of a talented film maker and some very fine actors excelling in their craft.

I'm eagerly awaiting the DVD release of this one !!

My favorite Western. An endlessly fascinating and tragic look at the American West, the evolution of legends, the nature of courage, the nature of love plus John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart too. Not to mention a snarling Lee Marvin as the villian Libery Valance

When this movie came out, some critics complained that Wayne and Stewart were too old for their roles. Critics also complained that the film looked studio bound. Later critics made much of the cynical newspaper publisher at the end of the movie who says "This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Through the lens of 60's anti-heroism, these critics saw Ford's film as being about the debunking of all heroic American legends.

Director John Ford knew exactly what he was doing. He eschewed the grand expanses of Monument Valley for the cramped back lot. He chose Wayne and Stewart because they were icons of the brave action hero and the law abiding community leader. He made these choices because he was making a stylized dirge to a frontier west where the code of facing your rival directly with a Colt .45 had given way to the complications of lawyers and lawbooks.

After countless viewings of this movie, I am not so sure Ford was being all that cynical, either. At least not in the way the debunkers want to make him out to be.

To me, the heart of this movie is an ultimate act of tragic romantic heroism and not cold political cynicism. The critics who focus on lawyer Stewart's physical confrontation with the villian, Libery Valance, and Stewart's later rise to political fame shortchange the second major conflict in the film.

Can a cowardly act ever be courageous? For Liberty Valance also tells the story of a man of honor who loves a woman very, very much. And then, one day, she asks him to do that one thing that goes against his own moral code. He thought he was strong enough to live with it.

It's hard to know where to begin with a movie as great as this. After watching the first time, I remember experiencing a deep sadness, which of course, is what Ford intended. I'm sure that some reviewers have panned the almost claustrophobic settings, but that is exactly what Ford intended -- there was no more room for a traditional western with expansive backdrops and the accompanying sense of boundlessness. This film was, in my mind, the western that announced the end of westerns. Just as John Wayne's character, however heroic and admirable, had no place in what would become civilized society, the western was also beginning to lose its appeal simply because it didn't make as much sense in a world that was changing. I think a lot of John Wayne fans forget that Ford was trying to point out that Tom Doniphon was the person who most resembled Liberty Valance (not to mention the cattlmen) in that both were figures who relied on force, not law, not language. And of course, Doniphon's shooting of Liberty was essentially murder, which is why Doniphon goes into a drunken rage. Some viewers think that Doniphon behaves as he does because he realizes that he has lost Hallie. Actually, he knows that because of what he has done, he cannot live with himself, much less the woman he loves. This is only half the story, though. Ford makes quite clear that the origins of society depend very much on men like Doniphon, and that in a different age, his way was absolutely essential. If Doniphon's/Wayne's way of life had to go for the sake progress, then we cannot help but feel the loss of such nobility, however dangerous. Honestly, I'm not a John Wayne fan, because sometimes the "rugged individualist" role became a stereotype that trapped him as a actor/character. But in "Liberty," Wayne exceeds all stereotypes and against the backdrop of his own obsolescence, emerges triumphantly human.

John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is a marvelous movie, regardless of how you feel about Westerns. This isn't a movie about outlaws, or something violent, but a study of the fight between old and new in our society. John Wayne's rugged cowboy represents the old, untamed west. Jimmy Stewart's refined and educated lawyer represents the order and civilized nature of a new west. Both clearly love the land they live on in different ways, and when the time comes to protect the people of the west from the evil Liberty Valance (played to perfection by Lee Marvin), they team up to save the day. In the end, Stewart's way of life, the way of progress, wins out. However, as can be seen by the memories the major characters have at the start of the film, the old west never really dies. The movie is just brilliant, with all the leads in top form, especially the forgotten Vera Miles as the woman both Wayne and Stewart love.

John Ford's magnificent portrait of the lawless old west, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962), stars James Stewart as lawyer Rance Stoddard, Vera Miles as his wife Hallie, John Wayne as rancher Tom Donophon, and Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance, the meanest and nastiest outlaw in the frontier town of Shinbone. Originally dismissed as just another John Wayne western, LIBERTY VALANCE is now considered a masterpiece of the genre.

The plot is simple: Stoddard and Donophon join forces to kill Valance and his men on the night streets of Shinbone outside of the saloon. But when and how? Rounding out the cast is Ford's superb repertory of character actors: Andy Devine as a marshall, Edmond O'Brien as a news editor, Ken Murray as a drunken doctor, John Qualen as a cook, and Woody Strode as a kitchen helper whose being black is never mentioned. Ford is very hard on fair treatment of women (though Vera Miles is outstanding here), but he at least treats African-Americans with respect.

LIBERTY VALANCE is set in a long ago frontier town, with flawless art direction that includes stagecoaches and horse-drawn carriages. One can smell the whiskey in the saloon and the sawdust on the wood-planked sidewalks. And the movie has gorgeous B&W photography by William Clothier, who photographed several other Ford movies. Most of the characters are complex, neither good nor bad. The exception, of course, is Lee Marvin. He makes Liberty Valance so vividly cruel and nasty that I needed reassurance that the actor is really dead in actual life! The character is that real! Stewart and Wayne are both in peak form. They both had a great year in 1962, with this and HOW THE WEST WAS WON.

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, a serious and thoughtful adult western, is on DVD in the cheap $11.00 range as part of a John Wayne Signature Collection from Paramount Home Video. I recommend you build your Wayne DVD collection with these studio print titles, also including THE SHOOTIST, THE COWBOYS, EL DORADO, HONDO, and the wide-screen debut of McLINTOCK! (REVIEWED ON WIDESCREEN DVD.)

This is a very good John Ford Western, which is untypical of Ford in many ways. It has a claustrophobic feel about it and it seems unusual that it was shot in black & white (by William Clothier) in 1962. On one hand John Ford was always concerned with Eastern vs. Western values. Most of Ford's Westerns have always been about bringing law and order to the West in which ultimately progress and not guns achieve that dream for society. Ford's vision of that dream is much darker here. In this film Ford creates a darker dream thus not allowing elements of the dream to expand into the legend. Thus, the visual claustrophobic feel bolsters that idea and reality of an aging and wiser filmmaker.

John Wayne quietly underplays his role. James Stewart as the idealistic Eastern lawyer who is robbed on the way West, goes to work in the town of Shinbone as a dishwasher and eventually brings law and order to the West unknowingly through the efforts of Wayne. Lee Marvin as the villainous and evil Liberty Valance is one of Ford's most violent screen incarnations. Edmond O'Brien and Ford veterans Andy Devine, John Carradine and the incomparable Woody Strode are all featured. Set designers Sam Comer and Darrell Silvera did an excellent job on the Shinbone sets, especially O'Brien's newspaper office. John Wayne, Ford's mythological hero, and his performance are for me the cornerstone of this film. As elements of an Eastern based society overtake the untamed West, the old dream comes to a conclusion and with it the mythological hero of that dream must end as well.

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is for my money the most profound and deeply felt work of art in John Ford's filmography. Lacking the scenic values of "The Searchers" or even "Stagecoach," the movie zeroes in on what may be the most complex and fascinating group of characters in any Western. James Stewart plays Ransom Stoddard, newly credentialed lawyer and greenhorn in the rough frontier town of Shinbone; John Wayne is Tom Doniphon, longtime town resident famous for settling disputes with his fists and his six-gun. Their differing ways of dealing with Liberty Valance, one of the lowest, meanest, most sadistic outlaws in Western movie history (played by Lee Marvin in perhaps the best bad-guy turn of his career) sets up the central conflict from which emanate all the themes of this uncommonly rich, satisfying film. Here in one two-hour film is the entire story of how the Western frontier gave way to civilization, and what precisely was gained and lost in the taming of the West. There are scenes of palm-sweating suspense here--particularly the central showdown with Valance--as well as performances as brilliant as Ford ever coaxed from an ensemble cast. Stewart, Wayne and Marvin at least equal their career bests here, as do such estimable veterans as Edmond O'Brien, Vera Miles, Woody Strode, Andy Devine, John Qualen, Jeanette Nolan and John Carradine. The final, breathtakingly ironic line of dialogue will stay with you for a long, long time.