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Friday, June 27, 2014

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE by CHERYL PIERSON


Favorite western movies? I’ve got a few. But if I had to choose, I think it would have to be The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

This Hollywood classic, starring John Wayne as Tom Doniphon, Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance, Vera Miles as Hallie Ericson, and Jimmy Stewart as Ransom “Ranse” Stoddard has just about everything a western cinema fan could hope for: action, romance, right-over-might…and an unforgettable theme song.

Dorothy M. Johnson’s short story was made into a movie in 1962. It’s one of my oldest “movie” memories, as I was five years old when it made the rounds to the movie theaters and drive-ins.

Here’s the description of the movie according to Wickipedia:b>

Elderly U.S. Senator Ransom "Ranse" Stoddard and his wife Hallie arrive by train in the small western town of Shinbone, to attend the funeral of an apparent nobody, a local rancher named Tom Doniphon. Prior to the funeral, Hallie goes off with a friend to visit a burned-down house with obvious significance to her. As they pay their respects to the dead man at the undertaker's establishment, the senator is interrupted with a request for a newspaper interview. Stoddard grants the request.

As the interview with the local reporter begins, the film flashes back several decades as Stoddard reflects on his first arrival at Shinbone by stagecoach to establish a law practice.

A gang of outlaws, led by gunfighter Liberty Valance, hold up the stagecoach. Stoddard is brutally beaten, left for dead and later rescued by Doniphon. Stoddard is nursed back to health by restaurant owner Peter Ericson (John Qualen), his wife Nora (Jeanette Nolan) and daughter Hallie. It later emerges that Hallie is Doniphon's love interest.

Shinbone's townsfolk are regularly menaced by Valance and his gang. Cowardly local marshal Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) is ill prepared and unwilling to enforce the law. Doniphon is the only local courageous enough to challenge Valance's lawless behavior.


"You, Liberty...I said YOU pick it up..."

On one occasion, Doniphon even intervenes on Stoddard's behalf, when Valance publicly humiliates the inept Easterner. Valance trips Stoddard who is waiting tables at Peter's restaurant. Stoddard spills Doniphon's order causing Doniphon to intervene. Valance stands down and leaves. Doniphon tells Stoddard he needs to either leave the territory or buy a gun. Stoddard says he will do neither.

Stoddard is an advocate for justice under the law, not man. He earns the respect and affection of Hallie when he offers to teach her to read after he discovers, to her embarrassment, she's had no formal education. Stoddard's influence on Hallie and the town is further evidenced when he begins a school for the townspeople with Hallie's help. But, secretly, Stoddard borrows a gun and practices shooting.

Doniphon shows Stoddard his plans for expanding his house in anticipation of marrying Hallie, and reminds him that Hallie is his girl. Doniphon gives Stoddard a shooting lesson but humiliates him by shooting a can of paint which spills on Stoddard's suit. Doniphon warns that Valance will be just as devious, but Stoddard hits him in the jaw and leaves.

In Shinbone, the local newspaper editor-publisher Dutton Peabody (Edmond O'Brien) writes a story about local ranch owners' opposition to the territory's potential statehood. Valance convinces the ranchers that if they will hire him, he can get elected as a delegate to represent the cattlemen's interest. Shinbone's residents meet to elect two delegates to send to the statehood convention at the territorial capital. Valance attempts to bully the townspeople into electing him as a delegate. Eventually, Stoddard and Peabody are chosen. Valance assaults and badly beats Peabody after Peabody publishes two unflattering articles about Valance and his gang. The villains destroy Peabody's office. Valance also calls Stoddard out for a duel later in the evening after Valance loses his bid for delegate. Valance leaves saying "Don't make us come and get you!" Doniphon tells Stoddard he should leave town and even offers to have his farmhand, Pompey, escort him. But when Stoddard sees that Peabody has been nearly beaten to death, he calls out Valance. Stoddard then retrieves a carefully wrapped gun from under his bed and heads toward the saloon where Valance is. Valance hears he has been called out and justifies going out in self-defense. His wins his last poker hand before the duel with Aces and Eights.


"Pompey..."

In the showdown, Valance toys with Stoddard by firing a bullet near his head and then wounding him in the arm, which causes Stoddard to drop his gun. Valance allows Stoddard to bend down and retrieve the gun. Valance then aims to kill Stoddard promising to put the next bullet "right between the eyes," when Stoddard fires and miraculously kills Valance with one shot to the surprise of everyone, including himself. Hallie responds with tearful affection. Doniphon congratulates Stoddard on his success, and notices how Hallie lovingly cares for Stoddard's wounds.

Sensing that he has lost Hallie's affections, Doniphon gets drunk in the saloon and drives out Valance's gang, who have been calling for Stoddard to be lynched for Valance's "murder." The barman tries to tell Doniphon's farmhand Pompey (Woody Strode) that he cannot be served (due to his race), to which Doniphon angrily shouts: "Who says he can't? Pour yourself a drink, Pompey." Pompey instead drags Doniphon home, where the latter sets fire to an uncompleted bedroom he was adding to his house in anticipation of marrying Hallie. The resulting fire destroys the entire house.

Stoddard is hailed as "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and based on this achievement, is nominated as the local representative to the statehood convention. Stoddard is reluctant to serve based upon his notoriety for killing a man in a gunfight. At this point, in a flashback within the original flashback, Doniphon tells Stoddard that it was he (Doniphon), hidden across the street, who shot and killed Valance in cold blood, and not Stoddard in self-defense. Stoddard finds Doniphon and asks him why he shot Valance. He did it for Hallie, he says, because he understood that "she's your girl now". Doniphon encourages Stoddard to accept the nomination: "You taught her to read and write, now give her something to read and write about!"

Stoddard returns to the convention and is chosen as representative. He marries Hallie and eventually becomes the governor of the new state. He then becomes a two term U.S. senator, then the American ambassador to Great Britain, a U.S. senator again, and at the time of Doniphon's funeral is the favorite for his party's nomination as vice president.

The film returns to the present day and the interview ends. The newspaper man, understanding now the truth about the killing of Valance, burns his notes stating: "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

"Hallie, who put the cactus rose on Tom's coffin?"

Stoddard and Hallie board the train for Washington, melancholy about the lie that led to their prosperous life. With the area becoming more and more civilized, Stoddard decides, to Hallie's delight, to retire from politics and return to the territory to set up a law practice. When Stoddard thanks the train conductor for the train ride and the many courtesies extended to him by the railroad, the conductor says, "Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance!" Upon hearing the comment, Stoddard and his wife stare off thoughtfully into the distance.


As a side note, one of the many reasons this film holds a special place in my heart is because I remember it as being the first time I made the connection between a scene onscreen representing a flashback. Remember the “flashback within a flashback” that the Wikipedia article mentions? The smoke from John Wayne’s cigarette moves and flows to take over the screen as he tells Jimmy Stewart, “You didn’t kill Liberty Valance. Think back…” That smoke took us back to the truth of what had happened, and my five-year-old brain was shocked—and enamored, even then, with the idea that time passage, or remembrances could be shown through the haze of cigarette smoke. It was the moment of truth for Ransom Stoddard.

For me, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance embodies the core of the west—good and evil, and how sometimes “the point of a gun was the only law”—and it all depended on the man who held the weapon.

Liberty represented the purest evil. Ranse was determined to fight him with the law he treasured—the desire to do things the legal way blinding him to the fact that Liberty didn’t respect that. In the beginning, his naivete is almost painful to watch, providing Liberty some rich entertainment. Though Tom finds it amusing, his growing respect for Ranse’s perseverance is portrayed to perfection by that familiar downward glance of John Wayne’s. Accompanied by the half-smile and his slow advice-giving drawl, the character of Tom Doniphon is drawn so that by the point at which he sees the handwriting on the wall and burns down the house he built for Hallie, the viewer’s sympathy shifts, briefly, to the circumstances Tom finds himself in.

But Ranse is determined to vanquish Valance one way or the other—with a lawbook or a gun—whatever it takes. In the final showdown, the lines of resignation are etched in Tom Doniphon’s face, and we know he is honor-bound to do the thing he’ll regret forever: save Ranse Stoddard’s life and lose Hallie to him.

I love the twist. Ranse truly believes he’s killed Valance. Again, to do the honorable thing, Tom tells him the truth about what really happened.

What do you think? If you were Ranse, would you want to know you really were not the man who shot Liberty Valance? Or would you want to be kept in the dark? If you were Tom, would you have ever told him? It’s a great movie!




Now you can sing along!

THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE

When Liberty Valance rode to town the womenfolk would hide, they'd hide
When Liberty Valance walked around the men would step aside
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shootin' straight and fast---he was mighty good.

>From out of the East a stranger came, a law book in his hand, a man
The kind of a man the West would need to tame a troubled land
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shootin' straight and fast---he was mighty good.

Many a man would face his gun and many a man would fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all.

The love of a girl can make a man stay on when he should go, stay on
Just tryin' to build a peaceful life where love is free to grow
But the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When the final showdown came at last, a law book was no good.

Alone and afraid she prayed that he'd return that fateful night, aww that night
When nothin' she said could keep her man from goin' out to fight
>From the moment a girl gets to be full-grown the very first thing she learns
When two men go out to face each other only one retur-r-r-ns

Everyone heard two shots ring out, a shot made Liberty fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all.

The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all.

19 comments:

  1. I loved the song (takes me back on a wave of happy nostalgia) Who Shot Liberty Valance. Loved the movie, too. This was a fun blog to read, Cheryl. I just have to ask...where the heck do you find the time to do everything you do? I would be a madwoman doing all you do. You're not going to be one of those hyper-energy people that just suddenly snaps one day and we get to see the video of you chasing squirrels in nothing but your cowgirl boots on the evening news, are you?
    Well, you just keep doing what you're doing because success is what we all want for you. Just remember to come up for some tranquil air now and again.

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    1. LOL, Sarah! You mean you didn't see that broadcast? It was quite...um...revealing. I want a pair of boots matching Cheryl's, though! :-D

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    2. Sarah, I must confess to a quick re-vamp of this blog. I didn't write it just now--I'd posted it before for a different group of readers. But I love this movie so much and wanted something "fun" for today. So I found the cool video--which I thought the guy did a fantastic job of putting together with some of the best scenes from the movie. I was so excited a couple of years back to find a book of GENE PITNEY songs for the piano! I snapped that bad boy up because it had TMWSLV in it. Let me tell you...the piano rendition loses something from the Gene Pitney version. LOL

      I literally stay busy from the time I get up until I go to bed and I usually don't go to bed until really really late. I'm hoping that by the time our 1st PRP anniversary rolls around in August, the 2nd year of our existence will bring me a tiny bit more free time. LOL

      I definitely am going to devote more time to my own writing, because I've let that slide.

      I'm so glad you enjoyed the blog. I don't get a chance to chase squirrels in my boots anymore. My dog beats me to it, sans boots. He's much faster than I am, and they're a lot more afraid of him than they are of me. LOL

      Hugs!
      Cheryl

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  2. Okie, you already know this is one of my favorite movies. IMO, it's as close to perfect as a movie can get -- and, oddly, much better than the short story on which it was based.

    Now I'm going to have to find it on Netflix and watch it again. :-)

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    1. Kathleen, we had an agreement that you were not going to blab about that little unfortunate news piece...I was hoping not everyone out there had SEEN it, but of course now, you've started the stampede. They'll all hurry over to youtube to try and find it. And some dang fool has probably got it set to music already. SIGH.

      Yes, I agree about TMWSLV being close to perfect. It really is. And SO much better than the short story. I was so disappointed when I read the short story. Wished I hadn't read it, because after seeing the movie so many times, I had in my mind what these characters looked like and the way they acted, etc. It was really a good thing it happened that way, because if I'd read that story first I might not have even cared if I'd seen the movie.

      Thanks for chiming in, Tex...and as for those boots...what size do you wear????

      Hugs, dear friend!
      Cheryl

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    2. Kathleen, I agree that the movie is hands-down better than the book. Changing the Burt Baricune (may have spelling wrong) character to Tom Doniphan was definitely an improvement. I just can't put John Wayne and "Burt' together and make it work. 0_o

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    3. I didn't like the way Ranse was portrayed in the story. Like some bitter, vindictive, petty person--that changed everything! The movie was so much better.

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  3. Great post, Cheryl! I love Stewart in westerns, from DESTRY RIDES AGAIN on and think he's under rated as a western star. The only thing I'd change about ...LIBERTY VALANCE is John Carradine's long winded speech toward the end.

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    1. Hi Richard!

      Yes, that WAS a long winded speech, wasn't it! LOL But movies back then tended to do more of that, and moralize more than they do today. I'm so glad you enjoyed the post. I really just can't say enough good about this movie on so many fronts. I loved Jimmy Stewart, too. He was really a good actor, and from all accounts, a good person.

      Thanks for coming by!
      Cheryl

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  4. Third try on the comment -- Enjoyed Liberty Vance, but my fav is probably Heaven with a Gun. That's the abbreviated post.

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    1. Tara,

      Wow, I'm so sorry you've had trouble commenting! Thank you for keepin' on keepin' on! I have not seen Heaven with a Gun. Now I must look it up and see what it's all about.

      Thanks again for stopping in and being persistent. Blogger can be a pain some days.

      Cheryl

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  5. I loved the movie and the song. I think its so sad they don't do great westerns like that anymore. Maybe that's what's missing in today's society, our children have no real hero's to look up to except movie stars, singers and athletes that seem to get caught up I some bad habits. At least in the westerns you knew he good guys wore white hats
    .

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    1. I agree, Barb. Thank goodness we had a lot of these on video when my kids were little. They loved them--we had family movie night and so they got to know John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Mitchum...all the wonderful western stars. I agree about the athletes. So many of them don't see themselves as any kind of role model...but they are.
      Cheryl

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  6. I'll probably be run out of town, but this was never one of my favorites. I blame it on my dad, it was never one of his and I think his attitude rubbed off on me. :) But I did like the name of Jimmy Stewart's character because Ransom is my dad's name. But I have to agree with other comments, I love Jimmy Stewart in Westerns and of course the Duke is always top notch.

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    1. Kirsten, my daughter and I both get teary when we watch this one so we have to pick a time...LOL I love the name Ransom! My dad's name was Fred. LOL I have a lot of favorite westerns. This one just stands out to me because of the memories I have of watching it for the first time. (I usually can't remember back that far...)
      Cheryl

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  7. I liked the song probably more than the film. But I did like the film, primarly because the performances were so good. A good story made better by the actors making the characters real and someone we care about. That fact that we care so much is the mark of a classic film. Doris

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    1. Doris, I love that song. LOL I've played it about 10 times today. Did you see on the trailer where it says something like "Great actors! Great performances! About a great man!" LOL I cracked up at that. Yes, this is one of my very fave movies, anywhere, any time!
      Cheryl

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    2. Of course it wouldn't be as good if Lee Marvin wasn't so wonderful as the villain. He could chew through scenery like no ones business. The whole cast was spot on. And yes, the song has been running through my head all night...Dang, and I need to get to sleep. (That work thing...sigh) Doris

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    3. I love Lee Marvin. I remember my mom always saying how she couldn't stand him. As a kid I didn't realize it was because of the parts he always played. LOL I wondered, "How does Mama know him? He's a Hollywood actor!" LOL

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