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Saturday, February 17, 2018

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!


https://youtu.be/IU8bBlPtBK4
https://youtu.be/IU8bBlPtBK4

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.

12 comments:

  1. Oh, how I love this movie...one of my faves, of all times. Perfect casting, and what a great story! I have to go and sing the song now...for the 40th time today...

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  2. Cheryl,

    This movie had (and still has) such an influence on my writing. The short story is memorable, and I used it in class when I taught English and literature, but the movie version is where the real power of the story unfolds. Liberty is easy to hate. He's a bully for the sake of bully-ness, and he has minions. *wink* Ranse is the metaphor of civilization arriving in an untamed country and the challenges it faces to thrive. Tom embodies all the qualities of what it took to begin the taming of the untamed land, which were necessary at the time, but have seen their heyday. Tom knows this, and much as he hates what Ranse represents (which is the symbolic death of his 'kind/breed', he understands there is no stopping its progression. Despite himself, Tom knows that Hallie only has a future if Ranse is there to share it with her. So, he loves her enough to set her free... I could go on...

    Gosh I love this story.

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    1. I love it too, Kaye. I love the symbolism in it, and the people that played these parts in the movie were, IMO, PERFECTLY CAST. I have to listen to the song again now...

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  3. Love that you've featured this movie, a classic, with great actors. I haven't seen the movie in years, but I do have a funny anecdote to share. It was a Saturday, back in '74, and Doug's birthday. All day he was anticipating watching it that night. Shortly before the movie began, I was pretending to bake something and asked him to drive to the store for bananas. He muttered but went. As soon as he left, I phoned my friends who lived a couple blocks away and the two couples hid the car around the corner and rushed downstairs to the tv room and hid in the closet. Doug came back and still muttering, went downstairs and sank into his lawn chair (we didn't have the tv in the living room, but downstairs). He just got settled when there was a crash as the friends shot back the sliding closet door and yelled, "Happy Birthday". He nearly had a heart attack. After he recovered, he of course apologized for being so cranky, because he's actually a very easy-going guy. I don't think he saw Liberty Valance that night, lol,but I do think I bought him the movie at some point. Thanks for sharing the song, Cheryl.

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  4. Oh, that is funny, Elizabeth! But not for Doug. I would probably have reacted the same way. I do not like surprises. LOL I have that movie, too. I still love it every time I watch it, just like the first time I saw it. LOL

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  5. While not my favorite, I do enjoy this movie. The way it was filmed, the performance by the whole cast make it worth the time spent. The story, so good. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. And for me it's "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Ox-bow Incident". Doris

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    1. Oh, yes, Doris. The Magnificent Seven is such a classic. With so many wonderful actors. Loved that movie so much, and I have it in my collection, too. I watched the new one and liked it, but it was like seeing a different storyline, to me. Very unlike the first one, which is okay, but I would have named it something else. LOL Hollywood seems to try to re-do the same thing over and over again instead of coming up with new ideas. It has been years since I've seen The Ox-bow Incident. I need to watch that one again. Well, truly, you just can't go wrong with a good western movie.

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  6. A very understated, multi-layered film that requires repeated watching. Don't accept what you THINK it is, but look beyond superficial and you will see so much more.

    And how can you go wrong with Gene Pitney singing!

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    1. Yes, so true, Deborah. I actually think that was one of John Wayne's best performances ever. And of course, it was one of Jimmy Stewart's, too. This was a case of where the movie went much deeper than what was actually written in the short story, and I liked it so much better. I can't say that very often -- usually the book is better than the movie, IMO.

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  7. I've never seen this movie, but after your great post, Cheryl, I definitely want to check it out.

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    1. Oh, Kristy, I hope you will. This is such a classic and though there are a couple of parts of it that drag a little, most of it just hums right along. And besides, if we have to have this song trapped in our heads, you do too! LOL

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    2. You must have really loved this movie, Cheryl, to have memorized it so well you could summarize the entire thing on your blog. Whew!

      I don't think I ever saw a movie with John Wayne that wasn't good. What a great actor, and what a wonderful human being. Lee Marvin always played a villain or the town drunk.

      I believe, no matter how hard it is, the truth will set you free. If I were Ranse, I would want to know the truth, and, if I were Tom, I'd tell Ranse the truth. I think we would all want to be the hero in this story--the person that stand up against evil, even if you're alone, and even if you know it may cost you everything, even your life.
      Great blog, Cheryl.

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