The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - An Essential Viewing

by Simon Gelten (Scherpschutter)
(Turnhout, Belgium)

Aren't those old posters compelling ?

Even though John Ford made one more western movies after it, this film was to him what Once upon a Time in the West was to Sergio Leone: a goodbye to the genre, while glorifying and demystifying it at the same time. The film probably is most famous for the line spoken by the local newspaper man who has learned who shot Liberty Valence in reality: ‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend’. This seems an unconditional glorification of western myths, but by explaining how one of them was constructed, the mythology is demystified.


The man from the title, so the man who shot the famous Liberty Valence, is senator Stoddard (James Stewart), who came to the town of Shinbone years ago as a young lawyer to tame the frontier, not with a six-shooter, but with his law books. He did tame the frontier, or at least the town of Shinbone, but not without the use of a six-shooter – at least that is the legend that boosted his political career. Now he has come back for the funeral of a very ordinary man named Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). In one long flashback the story is unfolded. We watch the events that lead to that crucial confrontation between Stoddard and Valence, and learn the facts behind the legend.


Ford’s West was above all the frontier, with the cavalry fort as a safe haven for family life. But in Liberty Valence the frontier is about to close and life takes place more and more within the borders of the western town. In key moments life is still dominated by Old West icons like the noble gunman (Wayne) who stands up for law and order, and the bandit (Marvin), paid by landowners to defend their privileges against the newcomers. But Wayne is starting to feel awkward in a town in which people dress up when they go out on Saturday night, so he’s building a frontier house in no man’s land to recreate his lost paradise, and Marvin is more an alcoholic troublemaker than a real bandit, who cannot understand how newspapers and law books dare to question the authority of his gun and whip. In a western set in the Old West, Wayne and Marvin would’ve met in the town’s street to shoot it out. But in the New West, banditry will meet with written law, and Wayne can only interfere in the conflict by giving up his personal code of honour (and his bride to be!), so the town and its people can go on, and their future representative, Stoddard can complete his civilizing job.


John Ford decided to shoot the film in black&white, and nearly completely on sound stages, which emphasizes the claustrophobic nature of the narrative. But for this reason the film is devoid of the gloriously looking landscapes that had served Ford’s westerns so well over the years. As a result it may look a bit too static to some. Some supporting characters, offering comic relief, get too much head room. O’Brien overplays his part as the shouting, alcoholic newspaper man, and Devine is a real nuisance as the cowardly, permanently hungry Marshal who talks with a high, very high voice, as if he had been emasculated prior to the movie. But the trio of stars is wonderful. The Duke gives a rather restrained performance as the gunman who nearly has outlived his time, and although Stewart tends to rely a bit too much on the antics he often showed in his long career, it’s impossible to imagine somebody else in the part. Marvin was criticized, for being not menacing enough as the film’s villain, but as I already pointed out, like Wayne’s character Liberty Valence is about to become obsolete, he’s a man who no longer feels at ease in the world he’s living in, so he’s not supposed to be too menacing. Moreover his reputation has been blown up, like Stoddard’s. This was nicely illustrated in the Bacharach-David title song, that sadly didn’t make it to the movie, in which Liberty Valence is portrayed as one of the West’s great bandits and the man who shot him is called the bravest of them all. Now compare the lyrics of this song with the bleak, anti-heroic conclusion of the movie.


This is essential viewing for every western scholar. It’s the conclusion of an era and a prelude on things to come: the deconstruction of the western myth and the dying of the West would take over the genre - in a more radical way than Ford had ever dreamed of - in the works of the two directors who would inherit his crown: Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. Maybe it wasn’t just coincidence that Liberty Valence’s henchmen were played by Strother Martin and Lee van Cleef.