Movie Critic Review: "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" 1962

The Movie That Was A Big Flashback!

John Ford

With a technical structure similar to that of Orson Welles's (Citizen Kane 1941), here is a classic film that upholds solid moral issues and highlights the conflict between

truth and illusion as it unravels during the peak events.

John Ford's directorial perspective manages to embody the meanings in the film through his mastering of beautiful long shots and angles of shooting that render eye-catching influential footage. Then add to these virtues the fact that the movie stars two giant actors: James Stewart and John Wayne who rank high on any list

of important figures in the American cinema industry.

They still inspire actors who seek to take roles that promote moral values​​.

John Wayne and James Stewart

Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) in the beginning of this movie of interlocking scenes remembered, narrates to the press the story of his deceased friend. The man who helped him in his ordeal, helped him get married and become a distinguished high-level Congress politician.

Lee Marvin

The film opens on the arrival of the older distinguished Congress politician Ransom Stoddard and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) to their hometown to attend the funeral of his old friend Tom Doniphon
(John Wayne) to whom he owes much of his success and
bright life. By keeping in secret the details of the shooting of
Liberty Valance, Doniphon paved the way for Stoddard to rise as
a respectable leader and later a Congress careerist.
Upon leaving the train station, Stoddard and wife notice a radical change in much of the town they had left decades ago. (Shinbone) is now a big city!
When the news spread of the arrival of the Stoddards, journalists rushed to obtain the story. The storyline is unfolding now in flashback depicting Stoddard with a number of passengers in a wagon headed to Shinbone decades ago. Stoddard an educated young man, wanted to settle in this small town to practice as a lawyer. The wagon gets attacked by a gang of three gunfighters led by the villain Liberty Valence who harassed and tortured the wagon passengers, killing one of them. The lawyer gets beaten hard but is saved by the arrival of the much-feared Doniphon (John Wayne) and the fleeing of the gang. 

Lee Van Kleef

Doniphon, being good at heart, takes the hurting lawyer to a restaurant owned by Peter who happens to be the father of the girl Hallie with whom Doniphon is in silent love!
Doniphon keeps to himself the feeling of rivalry with Stoddard who is able to gain the trust of Hallie while he stayed with her father, the restaurant owner. Before the arrival of Stoddard, Doniphon was renovating his ranch and planting flowers and beautiful plants in preparation to marry Hallie. Now his dream appears to be disappointed when he sees by his own eyes the tendency of Hallie to Stoddard, who lives with them and has taught her to read and write.
Doniphon accepts the reality of the affair between his loved one and this newcomer and consoles himself by attributing things to bad luck. Instead of fostering hate to his rival he vents his feelings by demolishing the newly restored parts of his house and goes further in being kind to Ransom to try to forget Hallie forever. He had remained a bachelor until the day he died. For Hallie's sake he teaches Ransom how to pull his gun fast and aim better
to be able to beat Liberty Valence. But he does that in vain as Ransom, the educated gentleman, seems unable to train as a gunfighter.
Tom Doniphon has made Stoddard believe that he killed the fierce offender Liberty Valence in order to raise his status in front of the town's residents, and then become a senator in Congress.
"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" charges you with a hightened morale as it elaborates on positive representations of moral values. It is considered a cinematic masterpiece in its own right and occupies a high rank among the 250 best films in history.
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"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" 1962 (123 min, Black and White)

Director: John Ford* (1894–1973) See note below. 
Editor:  William H. Clothier
Music by Cyril Mockridge
The Cast:
John Wayne: (1907–1979) 
True Grit, The Sons of Katie Elder, Hatari, The Alamo, How The West Was Won.
James Stewart: (1908–1997)
Airport '77, Vertigo, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Rear Window.
Lee Marvin: (1924–1987) 
The Professionals, The Dirty Dozen, Point Blank.
Lee Van Kleef: (1925–1989)
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, For A Few Dollars More.
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* John Ford creates his own worlds in arid spaces, remote territories and on the
sidelines of urban society and into the expanse of the American west terrain.
It is as though he seeks the cinematic equivalent to what a poet retrieves from a flight
into the desert. Into scarcity and drought, horror, fear, and marginality. The devices
which drive man into his trials and tribulations.
The John Ford characters are heroes in an era of the non-hero except may be only in
the wild west of America where roughness of life, drought and risk prevail.
Ford's champions are in a constant search for the tournament and the values ​​of heroism
and nobility. Always in search for the dangers of places, and when they are on the edge
of the danger and the peak of despair and indifference, there wakes in there tired bodies
the dormant hero to rekindle the values of friendship and the defense of the oppressed.