Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

chaswe-28402 A strange film. Clumsy direction, dated style, curiously over-aged cast, yet a consistently compelling watch. Before reading some other reviews I didn't really notice how old the cast were, especially as the time frame varied. What fascinated was the theme that history gets faked. And the press is complicit. It strikes me that this is especially true of the history in this film. The pointer in the script was the phrase that all men are created equal, stumbled over by Woody Strode. All men are obviously not created equal, in any practical sense, and rarely treated equal. It is obvious to anyone who thinks twice that the basic aim of the Revolution was to preserve US slavery as long as possible, and to eliminate, or ethnically cleanse, the Native Americans, so as to grab their land. The demonisation of constitutionally powerless, good-natured and mentally disturbed King George III as a tyrant was, and is, ludicrous. The British Royal family have had no political power since 1714. So much for no taxation without representation. The land-hungry colonists made not the slightest attempt to seek representation in Britain, which would have scuppered their drive to get possession. So the fiction became fact, and this film seems to recognise the truth of this untruth. The story could have been better written, and the direction could have been more subtle and realistic, but the message is powerful. Print the legend. Make America great, whatever the means or method. The real representative of the pioneer spirit was Lee Marvin. Liberty ? Was that a joke ? Violence and guns are essential. No votes from America.

wildbunch-20336 No doubt that this is one of the best movies ever made pitting good against evil and showing the struggles in making honorable decisions when making dishonorable ones would be much easier.

sir-mauri Stewart plays Ransom Stoddard, a peaceful and idealistic attorney. Wayne plays Tom Doniphon, a tough sharp-shooter and complete opposite to Ransom. Both men share a common interest in the same woman, but also share a common dislike to the town's local thug, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Lee Marvin plays Liberty Valance, a local thug who bullies the town with violence and intimidation, which is more than enough for Ransom to pair.But what was thought to be a miraculous moment for Ransom was actually a surprising twist near the end. Tom let Ransom take credit for killing Valance because he was a good man, and people had looked up to him for standing up to a bully, whereas Tom himself would've just be remembered as a gun-slinger who was always at odds with Valance, and it would've been a matter of time if one of them killed the other. Tom also knew that the same woman the two men vied for loves Ransom, so he accepted that the best man won her heart (and that's why he wanted Ransom to live, for her).Stewart and Wayne were both brilliant in the film. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was one of the greatest western films of all. In 2007, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Turfseer With a remake in the works, it's time now to re-evaluate The Man who Shot Liberty Valance. Wikipedia informs us that the iconic film director John Ford considered it his favorite film. And critic Roger Ebert wrote that each of the ten Ford/Wayne westerns is "... complete and self-contained in a way that approaches perfection", and singled out Liberty Valance as "the most pensive and thoughtful" of the group.It begins with a much too long expository scene. Senator Ransom "Ranse" Stoddard (played by James Stewart made up to be well into his seventies) along with his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) return to the frontier town of Shinbone, to attend the funeral of Stoddard's old cowboy friend, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Oddly, the town newspaper editor never heard of Doniphon, despite his legendary reputation, made clear by Stoddard, who then relates both his and Doniphon's story, at the editor's behest.The presence of a telephone at the railway station in the opening scene suggests that the story begins a little after the turn of the century, possibly 1905. Stoddard relates how he came to Shinbone years earlier as an idealistic young attorney, where he immediately was drastically assaulted by Liberty Valance during a stagecoach robbery. Can we assume this might have occurred 25 years earlier, perhaps around 1880? Stoddard, as a young attorney, would probably have been about 30 years old (Stewart is miscast here, as he was a little over 50 when he acted in Ford's picture).Now the location of the story is never revealed, but a big part of the plot revolves around "homesteaders" and "big ranchers." The homesteaders (which include small landowners, small farmers, etc.) are in favor of statehood and the moneyed interests (cattle barons, etc.) oppose them. While historians inform us that for the most part the wild west was relatively non-violent (especially in comparison to what's happening today, particularly in the big cities), there was one bloody conflict, the Johnson County War, which occurred in Johnson, Wyoming, between 1889 and 1893, which may have been the model for the conflict alluded to in Liberty Valance.One glaringly major omission we notice right away is that the hated "big ranchers" are never seen during the entire narrative. Instead, the sadistic criminal, Liberty Valance, is made out to be their enforcer. It's hard to buy that idea since historically, the moneyed interests banded together and created an organization, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (the WSGA), which hired detectives to police the range—going after rustlers who were poaching on their land. But even if you buy the idea that a criminal like Valance might have ended up as some kind of private contractor for the WSGA, the idea that everyone in the town of Shinbone was a milquetoast (epitomized by the bumbling sheriff played by Andy Devine), and was afraid to stand up to someone like Valance is absurd. Here, only Tom Doniphon has the guts to stand up to Valance, along with Stoddard (who advocates a non-violent approach).After some small ranchers were falsely accused by WSGA detectives as "rustlers," and were killed, the homesteaders formed their own organization, the Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers' Association (NWFSGA). As Wikipedia informs us, the WSGA hired 23 gunmen and 4 cattle detectives and ended up assassinating the head of the NWFSGA. Various dignitaries including a State Senator joined the gunmen and in response (now read this!) the Sheriff in the nearby town of Buffalo GATHERED A POSSE OF 200 MEN and ended up cornering the WSGA men at a ranch where there was a standoff for two days. Only the intervention of Federal troops on orders from President Benjamin Harrison prevented further bloodshed. So much for wimpy homesteaders!The cowardice of the townspeople in the film is contradicted by history, and the idea that Doniphon is the only man in town who can stand up to Valance, is absurd. There were tough characters on both sides of the range war, and a character like Valance would never have been allowed to get away with terrorizing the populace as is depicted here. Why Doniphon doesn't take Valance out before the climactic duel with Stoddard, makes little sense, considering Valance is already wanted for murdering two people during a robbery (not to mention the robbery of the stagecoach and Stoddard's brutal beating, recounted by the elderly Senator as the beginning of the "break into Act 2").Another plot contrivance which I find hard to swallow is the idea that a Senator from the frontier would have taken up the mantle of pacifism during that time. The wimpy Stoddard is such a pacifist that he walks out after being nominated to represent the pro-Statehood forces in Congress. Why does he walk out? Because he feels guilty that he violated his pacifist precepts by shooting Liberty Valance. It's only AFTER Doniphon reveals that it was he who shot Valance, that Stoddard has a change of heart. Now his guilt is assuaged and he can accept the nomination. The only thing good about this film is the twist that it was Doniphon and not Stoddard who shot Liberty Valance. After the duel, the rest is anti-climactic. Wimpy Stoddard goes on to become Senator and Doniphon takes to the bottle, after he fails to "get the girl." It's odd that macho John Wayne accepted the Tom Doniphon part. Perhaps he liked the idea that the macho Doniphon was a flawed character who could so easily self-destruct. I can't but help also suggest that "Liberty" is a parable about McCarthyism considering the film's release in 1962. Doniphon might have been a stand-in for McCarthy who took to the bottle after being censured by the Senate. The fight might have been justified but the methods weren't. Doniphon must pay a price—and it's the pacifist, Stoddard, who is ultimately rewarded.