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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Overview:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) was a Drama - Romance Film directed by John Ford and produced by John Ford and Willis Goldbeck.

SYNOPSIS

In director Ford's swan song for the conventional frontier Western, he answers the Death Valley panorama of his classical frontier films with the demise of the archetypal gunfighter-hero, with Wayne and Stewart representing wilderness vs. civilization. Stewart plays Ransom Stoddard, a law-school graduate from the East who tries to bring peace to the burgeoning town of Shinbone, which suffers under the tyranny of Valance (Marvin). After a series of run-ins and a hopeless attempt by Tom Doniphon (Wayne), a gritty Western hero, to teach him to shoot, Stoddard agrees to a showdown with Valance, but the real shooter - and savior - of Shinbone is his friendly rival, Doniphon. As peace comes to Shinbone, Stoddard wins an election and the hand of Doniphon's girl (Miles), while Doniphon never tells the townspeople the truth about the killing. A wonderfully realized film, which is both an elegy to a dying way of life and a wise commentary on the fragility of modern society. A keystone in Ford's career. Gene Pitney's title song was a million-seller.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2007.

Academy Awards 1962 --- Ceremony Number 35 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Costume DesignEdith HeadNominated
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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance BlogHub Articles:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

By Beatrice on Sep 16, 2017 From Flickers in Time

The Man Who Shot Liberty ValanceDirected by John Ford Written by James Warner Beliah and Willis Goldbeck from a story by Dorothy M. Johnson 1962/USA Paramount Pictures/John Ford Productions Repeat viewing/Netflix rental One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die John Ford delivers another cla... Read full article

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE ( 1962 )

By Theresa Brown on Oct 2, 2016 From CineMaven's Essays from the Couch

“Sir, I don’t want to intrude. But a United States Senator is news. I’m the editor of a newspaper with a state~wide circulation. I’ve got a responsibility to know why you came all the way down here to bury a man. You can’t just say ‘his name was Tom Doniphon,’ and leave it at that. Who... Read full article

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart

By Greg Orypeck on Feb 26, 2015 From Classic Film Freak

Share This!“I know those law books mean a lot to you, but not out here.  Out here a man settles his own problems. —Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) to Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a milestone film in a number of ways.  Although receiving poor reviews and a d... Read full article

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart

By Greg Orypeck on Feb 26, 2015 From Classic Film Freak

Share This!“I know those law books mean a lot to you, but not out here.  Out here a man settles his own problems. —Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) to Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a milestone film in a number of ways.  Although receiving poor reviews and a d... Read full article

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

on Aug 1, 2014 From Journeys in Classic Film

John Wayne’s mythos has transformed from just a man playing a part, into a representation of America and the American West itself. So it makes sense to end John Wayne week with a film about the self-creation of myths and the blossoming changes of the American West: The Man Who Shot Liberty Val... Read full article

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Quotes from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:

Tom Doniphon: Pompey, go find Doc Willoughby. If he's sober, bring him back.
Tom Doniphon: [Valance has tripped Rance in the diner, causing him to spill a tray of food] That's *my* steak, Valance.
Liberty Valance: [laughing] You heard him, Dude. Pick it up.
Ransom Stoddard: No!
Tom Doniphon: Pilgrim, hold it. I said you, Valance; *you* pick it up.
Liberty Valance: Three against one, Doniphon.
Tom Doniphon: My boy, Pompey; kitchen door.
[Valance looks and sees Pompey at the door holding a rifle]
Floyd: I'll get it, Liberty!
[Doniphon kicks Floyd in the face as he bends down to retrieve the tray]
Hallie: Rance, do you think I could... I mean, grown up and all... do you think I could learn to read?
Ransom Stoddard: Why, sure you can, Hallie. Why, there's nothing to it. It'd be... it'd be easy. Can you learn how to read? Why, I can... I can teach you. A smart girl like you? Of course you can learn how to read. Now, do you want to try?
Hallie: It's awful worrisome not knowing how. I know the Good Book from preacher talk; but it'd be a soul comfort if I could read the words myself.
Election Council President: [at the territorial statehood convention] The chair recognizes its old friend; that distinguished member of the Fourth Estate, founder, owner, publisher and editor of the Shinbone Star, Mr. Dutton Peabody, Esquire!
Dutton Peabody: Thank you, thank you, Mister Chairman, for those kind words; but why don't you tell them the whole truth: founder, owner, editor, and I also sweep out the place.
[first lines]
Ransom Stoddard: [descending from railway carriage and consulting pocket watch] Thanks, Jason. On time.
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Facts from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
With the last poker hand Valance plays before he is shot, he won with Aces and Eights - Wild Bill Hickok's "Dead Man's Hand".
O.Z. Whitehead, playing a teenager, was actually fifty years old in real life.
Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) refers to Valance as "... the toughest man south of the Picketwire," then adds, "next to me!" The Picketwire is not a wire fence dividing line; it was slang for the Purgatoire River, which flows into the Arkansas.
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.
At the beginning of the movie, in the scene in which Vera Miles comes near John Wayne's burned house, the music from John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln is played.
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