# Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The (1962)

### reviewed by
Brian Koller

The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

    Grade: 65

When I was a kid I would hear the "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance" on the radio. The song that is, which was a hit for mawkish singer Gene Pitney. There were lyrics somewhat like "When Liberty Valance strode the town, the folks would step aside, they'd hide". So bad it was good, the song has always made me look forward to seeing the movie and the bad guy Liberty Valance.

Well, the song wasn't in the movie, and Valance turned out to be Lee Marvin, creating the stumbling, wild-eyed, cartoonish character put to better use in "Ship of Fools" and "Cat Ballou". Director John Ford assembles a stellar cast, but like Marvin, the actors are given somewhat stereotypical characters familiar from previous roles. John Wayne is a good-guy rancher, handy with a gun ("Red River"), Jimmy Stewart is the new man in town, out of place and unwilling to use a gun ("Destry Rides Again"), Andy Devine is a comic relief character, the only man able to talk off-key ("Stagecoach"), Vera Miles is the headstrong, beautiful woman torn between two men ("The Searchers"), Edmond O'Brien is the drunken yellow journalist (help me fill in the blank here, folks). Fortunately, Ford is such a masterful storyteller that the film can partly overcome the conventional characters.

The story begins with an elderly Stewart and Miles arriving in a sleepy Western town to attend the funeral of a nobody. When a nosy reporter asks why, Stewart obliges. The film becomes a flashback. Stewart arrives from the East, and plans to establish himself as a lawyer in the town. Since he is pro-statehood, he becomes the enemy of Liberty Valance, a crazy, mean-spirited man with two sadistic sidekicks. Valance is in cahoots with greedy ranchers who oppose statehood. Aiding Stewart is the one-man newspaper firm O'Brien. Stewart is also befriended by good-guy, tough-guy Wayne, whose gal is Miles. Miles and Stewart work together in the kitchen of a restaurant, where they frequently exchange meaningful glances. A showdown between gunslinger Marvin and the ungainly, inexperienced Stewart is inevitable.

Although the film is over two hours long, there are only a few slow moments. Miles leads some cute schoolkids in their recital of the alphabet, while Maxwell Scott has failed to memorize the Declaration of Independence (ironic that he stumbles on the phrase "All men are created equal"). Since lauded as a great film, "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance" is a good but conventional Western that has become somewhat over-rated due to its famous cast and director.

briankoller@usa.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html

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