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Title: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
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Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| John Wayne | ... | ||
| James Stewart | ... | ||
| Vera Miles | ... | ||
| Lee Marvin | ... | ||
| Edmond O'Brien | ... | ||
| Andy Devine | ... | ||
 |
Ken Murray | ... | |
| John Carradine | ... | ||
| Jeanette Nolan | ... | ||
| John Qualen | ... | ||
| Willis Bouchey | ... | ||
|
|
Carleton Young | ... | |
| Woody Strode | ... | ||
| Denver Pyle | ... | ||
| Strother Martin | ... | ||
Storyline
When Senator Ransom Stoddard returns home to Shinbone for the funeral of Tom Doniphon, he recounts to a local newspaper editor the story behind it all. He had come to town many years before, a lawyer by profession. The stage was robbed on its way in by the local ruffian, Liberty Valance, and Stoddard has nothing to his name left save a few law books. He gets a job in the kitchen at the Ericson's restaurant and there meets his future wife, Hallie. The territory is vying for Statehood and Stoddard is selected as a representative over Valance, who continues terrorizing the town. When he destroys the local newspaper office and attacks the editor, Stoddard calls him out, though the conclusion is not quite as straightforward as legend would have it. Written by garykmcd
Taglines:
Together For The First Time - James Stewart - John Wayne - in the masterpiece of four-time Academy Award winner John FordParents Guide:
View content advisory »Details
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
28 May 1962 (UK) See more »Also Known As:
Un tiro en la noche See more »Box Office
Budget:
$3,200,000 (estimated)Company Credits
Technical Specs
Runtime:
| (cut)Sound Mix:
Mono (Westrex Recording System)Color:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1Did You Know?
Trivia
Several reasons have been put forward for the film being in black and white. John Ford once claimed it added to the tension, however others involved with production said Paramount was cutting costs and so they had to make the movie on sound stages at the studio. Without the budget restraints, Ford would have been in Monument Valley using Technicolor stock. It has also been suggested that since both John Wayne and James Stewart were playing characters thirty years younger than they actually were (Wayne was 54 when the movie was filmed in the autumn of 1961 and Stewart was 53), the movie needed to be in black and white because they would never have got away with it in color. The age difference was particularly noticeable in Stewart's case, since he was playing a young lawyer who had only just graduated from law school and had moved West without even practicing law back East. See more »Goofs
After Doniphan shoots the paint cans, the amount and patterns of the paint on Ranse's jacket changes. See more »Quotes
[first lines]Ransom Stoddard: [descending from railway carriage and consulting pocket watch] Thanks, Jason. On time.
See more »
Connections
Referenced in The Simpsons: The Strong Arms of the Ma (2003)A pageant contestant sings "(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance." See more »
Soundtracks
"Home on the Range"(1904) (uncredited)
Music by Daniel E. Kelley
Played in the score
See more »
Some films are slow to give up their secrets first time round and need some time to elapse before they are revalued. An opportunity to see "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" after a gap of several years turned out to be an unexpectedly rewarding experience. It had never been one of my favourite Ford films; indeed I was always puzzled why many rate it so highly in the canon. Its rather plain black-and-white visuals smack of low production values and it has little of the grand operatic sweep of many of his other Westerns. I can now see that I was rather missing the point: "Liberty Valance" is that rare thing, a chamber Western, a quiet and elegiac reappraisal of the legends of the West made almost at the end of Ford's creative career with "Cheyenne Autumn" the only Western still to come. A U.S. senator played by James Stewart returns with his wife (Vera Miles at her most attractive) to the small Western town, where, as a young man, he tied to set up a law business, to attend the funeral of the man (John Wayne) who saved his life when he tried to rid the community of its villain, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's Westerns had always been the stuff of legend. Now, towards the end of his career, he began to take the legend apart. The hero is not the one who goes on to become one of the town's most illustrious sons but the quiet man who fades into the background. It needs more than idealism to overcome evil, the film seems to be saying, Brute force has to be countered by brute force; moreover, true worth is not always rewarded or recognised by society. It is a bleak message that Ford is giving us. By homing in on character and plot to a far greater extent than usual, he gives us an experience that is often more akin to filmed theatre than cinema. There are unusually long sequences in studio built interiors, the diner, the bar and a theatre where an election adoption meeting is taking place. Outdoor sequences are few and far between. Instead of a large collective enemy such as marauding Indian tribes there is just the one baddy and his pair of sycophants. The pivotal action scene where Liberty Valance receives his just deserts takes place in a dark street and has none of the climactic sense of drama to be found in such shootouts as "My Darling Clementine" of Zinnemann's "High Noon". I can at last see that those very limitations that for so so long prevented me from appreciating "Liberty Valance" give it a sense of concentration and strength that the Western rarely achieves.