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John Wayne’s best western, according to IMDB





You don’t need us to tell you that John Wayne was one of the best Western cinema players of all time, but what was his best Western film? There are a lot of great choices in a career that lasted five decades, both with his ordinary and most famous collaborator John Ford and with other directors (“Rio Bravo”, “True Grit”, etc.). Two historical films with Ford often dominate the conversation: the Wayne Stars Tour in “Stagecoach”, and its unusually dark odyssey in “The Searchers”. The two are shiny cries, but if you pay attention to the IMDB rankings, the director and the star went better with “the man who shot on Liberty valance”.

Released in 1962, John Ford’s absorbing drama explores the conflict between the production of the romantic myth of the ancient West and the hard transition from the American border to democratic law and order. This may seem a little rehearsal if you expect shootings in the classic morning and the action of horses, but that Ford and Wayne also deliver these counts. “Liberty Valance” is an adult Westerner who is also a cute entertainment, giving us the first meeting on the screen between the Hollywood legends Wayne and James Stewart; A engaging love triangle; A casting of colorful support characters; And Lee Marvin as a main character, surely one of the biggest black hats to track down through a living room.

“The man who pulled on Liberty Valance” occupies an important place in the history of Western cinema, serving as a call for curtain and the death of the torch. It was Ford’s latest film in the genre with the Duke, offering John Wayne one of his best roles, and Ford himself approached the end of his career as a Western director. After undoubtedly more than any other filmmaker to colline the American West, he was an influential author who also began to count with his inheritance; Two years later, his last Western, “Cheyenne Autumn”, would actually serve excuses for the way he had represented indigenous Americans in the past. Meanwhile, “Liberty Valance” helped fill the gap between the first revisionist westerns of the 1950s and the most granular and most violent tastes of “Once Upon a Time in the West” by Sergio Leone and “The Wild Bunch” by Sam Peckinpah. Let’s take a closer look at what makes him so memorable, and why he’s best rated in Wayne on IMDB.

Who was the man who pulled on Liberty Valance?

“The man who shot Liberty Valage”, which was not exactly the easiest film to do, opens with Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) returning to the city of Shinbone of the pleasant border with his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) to attend the funeral of a friend, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). A local journalist is sent to obtain the scoop on the link between an important politician and an old cowboy. Reluctantly, Stoddard tells the whole story, returning us at 25 years earlier when he was an idealistic young lawyer who was looking for an adventure in the old west.

Arrived in the territory then unconformed and without law, the diligence of Stoddard is retained by a gang of bandits led by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Stoddard is stolen and beaten before it was found by Doniphon and taken to town. There, he is breastfed by hallie and wins his data by helping in the kitchen of a choke. He soon learned of the playing state in Shinbone: Valace and his two friends (played by Lee Van Cleef and Strother Martin) terrorize the inhabitants because the Marshal Lily Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) has too afraid to resist them.

Stoddard is determined to translate the outlaws into justice despite Doniphon’s warning that the only way to settle things in these parties is to transport a six-shooter and be ready to use it. Stoddard, however, hates violence and establishes his own law. He also runs a course to help Hallie and other illiterate city dwellers to receive a basic education. It is firmly supporter that learning is the basis of law and order and undertakes to win a state for the territory. Local cattle breeders like things very well as they are, and hire valance and its gang to intimidate the voters. This sets up a confrontation between the lawyer and the experienced Gunfighter – but Doniphon still has a lot to say in this area, despite romantic reasons for wanting Stoddard out of the photo.

Few Westerners have portrayed the journey of the old west of anarchy to democracy as well as “the man who fired on Liberty valance”, and John Ford establishes an intriguing balance between nostalgia for the border and defending modernity. The cast of two huge stars like Wayne and Stewart certainly helps, with the memorable cowboy of Wayne, representing Macho Old Days and Stewart, honest but emasculated for a large part of the film, representing the path to follow.

The complex themes of the man who fired on Liberty Valace

I generally try to avoid talking about politics during the writing of films, but it is almost impossible to discuss “the man who fired on Liberty valance” in another way – in fact, he was described by the New Yorker as “the greatest American political film”. As objectively as I can say, the film tells us: democracy, law, education, equality and freedom of expression are good things and the only means for civilized society to prosper. Beating people, individual greed, terrorizing voters and violently eliminating the free press are bad things.

Stoddard represents the good and the freedom of the Calanne represents evil, while Doniphon floats somewhere in the middle – he knows that the crusade of Stoddard is the best for the territory, but it always clings to the old ways of individuality and justice of the border. However, there are wrinkles. To make progress for the city, Stoddard must use the armed violence which he despises and his possible victory is marked by a more appropriate reputation of a Wild West pistol. At the end, he made a lot of senator, but he still remembers the man who fired on Liberty Valance. The old ways die harshly and, as the man of the newspaper said to him: “When legend becomes done, prints legend.”

On the other hand, Tom Doniphon’s arc is a soft-bitter way for John Wayne to retire in his last western with Ford. It is a two-fed cowboy that is not afraid to start shooting if necessary. He would certainly be more comfortable with the possession of the legend of killing a valant, but he abandoned this honor for the benefit of the city. He died alone in anonymity, a sad end for a heroic figure.

“The man who shot on Liberty Valance” is a political film of city meetings, storage of stumps and elections, but it is also a Western thriller with tense clashes and a final confrontation of suspense. There are complex themes that run everywhere, and John Ford presents these ideas without ever having the impression of hitting you over your head with them. This highlights Ford’s elegance as a filmmaker; Despite all his association with radical views and action, he was in his best story of delivery and beats of characters without attracting too much attention to himself. The voters of the IMDB may be right on this one: “The man who shot Liberty Valance” is held up there with the best westerns of John Wayne.



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