The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance__Bad John Ford

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Though John Ford's 1962 Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is peppered with many admirable elements, mostly in James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck’s screenplay; still, the movie as a whole is a mediocre sagebrush melodrama. The acting is so over-the-top that Andy Devine's cartoonish sheriff looks toned-down in comparison to the hysterical tenor of almost every serious scene. Any director who asks his cast to perform in the manner of Edmond O'Brien (who seems to be channeling a vaudevillian rum pot in baggy pants), or Lee Marvin, whose title character begs comparison to his role in Cat Ballou for farcical interpretation (“I’m a mean guy, see me snarl”), well that director is responsible for one confused and jumbled assignment. Yes, even the great John Ford made some sub-par movies, and I can’t count the movie in question as anywhere near the top of his game.

Why, I ask myself, is this movie shot almost entirely on a soundstage or backlot? With the expensive cast and Ford’s own production company taking its slice of the pie, I’d wager that most of the budget went into above-the-line costs, leaving very little for production value of any meaningful sort—locations were out. Shooting westerns in black and white in the early 60's was usually the result of budgetary considerations, not as some would have us believe, part of the director's vision. The budget of $3.2 Million was a good amount of money at that time, it wasn't as if the studio was skimping. Movies from the same year, such as To Kill a Mockingbird had a much smaller pocketbook to work with, but certainly delivered the look and feel which the movie demanded. Why was John Ford's movie hobbled by the poverty row look, certainly not to further the realism or to enhance historic detail? We could blame the producer for putting unrealistic constraints on the director, but Ford was the producer and director. Sad that the production didn't care enough about creating a cinematic world, but was satisfied with the most rudimentary sets, background paintings, and back lot streets left over from the last television show, or so it seemed. The production designer certainly wasn't overworked by demands for originality. I’m not saying that a Western needs Monument Valley backgrounds, or Vistavision formats in Technicolor to be successful. Certainly many wonderful movies were composed in sparse Western towns, or in glorious black and white, but High Noon, or Gunfight at the O.K. Corral this ain’t. John Ford himself directed very good “town” Westerns, My Darling Clementine being a case in point. However he certainly moved that one off the backlot. But leaving the budgetary constraints alone for the moment, Ford had a choice to treat this script in a serious, caring manner wherein the story might truly reflect the nexus of Wild West vs democratic expansionism; but instead he gave us a cramped, hyperbolic, manic treatise on grammar-school-level political science. And since I bring up childishness, the film’s most crucial personal drama is not concerned with killing, or personal responsibility, or the power of citizens to steer their country’s destiny, but instead he hangs the movie on an implausible love triangle. Tom Doniphon's (John Wayne) motivations are always and only in relation to what he judges to be the best interests of Hallie (Vera Miles), his planned wife-to-be. Then to confuse the romance issue even more, we’re given no clue that James Stewart's character, Ransom Stoddard, cares one amorous whit about Hallie until after the film’s active resolution late in the fourth reel—the killing of Liberty Valance. In Ford’s muddle, he seems to award Hallie to Stewart's Stoddard as a prize for acting heroically. We never satisfactorily discover why she chose one man over the other. It seemed like some amorphous destiny rather than the result of free will. But perhaps motivation is mute when assessing a film which treats characters solely as symbols to represent socio-political conviction rather than narrative storytelling. Later, all those deplorable scenes of governmental procedure in which Ransom Stoddard is elected as the would-be State’s representative are tacked on as a flag-waving coda; nothing here furthers the main construction of the story except as a dependable (if arbitrary) place to reveal the true actions of the famous shootout. We're left as always with the theme of civilization and modernity (sodbuster citizens) versus lawlessness and freedom (range ridin’ cowboys): a rather useful formula which permeates many westerns. It's certainly not original, and is often found in the most ordinary of genre pictures. The film's only acting job which can claim to be equally as embarrassing as Edmond O’Brien’s performance is exhibited within this same parliamentary sequence in John Carradine’s role, however to give the devil his due, at least there’s a reason for the merciless blow-hard factor, since he’s parodying political discourse.

With all the film criticism which has passed under the bridge since 1962, much has been made of this movie's use of spartan sets, few horses, no gambling houses. Some have referred to it as a psychological western, but where is this psychology? Each character hides behind a stereotype, with no individuality with which to espouse psychology. In fact the motivations among this cast are oftentimes obfuscated, or downright unexplainable. No, I don't agree that John Ford was interested in engineering a new species of western, I think he got tired or lazy. Take a look at the camera lighting, mostly interiors. The scenes have no key light, no directional source. It's the overall soft-lighting of early 1960's television. It's easy and fast to shoot this way, a series of camera set-ups is quicker to complete, but it's unwarranted and a cheat. I'd argue that some of this film's motivations aren't psychological as much as economical. 1962 was toward the end of John Ford's career, he'd been doing episodic television for the first time in his otherwise illustrious career. The year prior to filming The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he made another so-so movie titled Two Rode Together, which by the director's own admission "I did for the money . . . it was crap." It also starred James Stewart with Richard Widmark and Shirley Jones rounding out the headliners.

"Pappy" had been directing films since 1917, he'd won 6 academy awards (two were for WWII documentaries), and been nominated for two others, but those accolades had dried-up long before 1962. It's easy to admit he's one of the very best talents to ever make a Hollywood film. No less a judge than Orson Welles, when asked to name the three best American directors answered, "John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." But great directors don't always make great films, especially when their careers span over 50 years at the helm. I merely believe that the great John Ford made at least one western that wasn't very good, this one. Critics and Western audiences (primarily older, white conservative males) have hung their interpretations on the skeleton of a standard movie, a fairly typical Hollywood movie of the day. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was certainly not a spectacular event like the dazzling musicals which were being produced at that time, nor did John Ford use younger more popular stars which Otto Preminger and Elia Kazan were beginning to use from the acting studios of New York. Newer directors, writers, and method actors were breathing a more earthy sexuality into film. There was a surge of moral questioning taking place. At this time Ford was in his late 60's and his male stars weren't much younger. Both John Wayne and James Steward were in their mid-50's playing young men vying for the hand of a much younger Vera Miles. The director's loyalty to cast and crew wasn't helping his film's stories and the audience stayed away. In 1962, critics and movie reviewers were not referring to John Ford's newest western as a breakthrough or psychological film. They were calling it uneven. And indeed, many scenes and entire sequences in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance seem like sketches, rather than fleshed out cinematic storytelling.

With the cowardly sheriff; the slavish hired-hand; the sensitive and idealistic lawyer; the tough, well-respected, horse rancher smitten by love; the pretty waitress with a heart of gold; the dipsomaniac newspaperman; we should have Toto leading them all down a yellow brick road to Oz, or, in this case the Territorial capital to beg for redemption. And in answer to anyone's belief that James Stewart is a fine actor, I disagree. He was a serviceable leading man/action actor—simply put, a movie star. His range was minimal, his voice mannered, with constant use of his high range to simulate excitement. I’m afraid his insight into psychological impact read more often than not as phony. Give him a prop, show him where to hit his marks, he’s fine. I’d rank him somewhere above Charlton Heston, and below Henry Fonda, as I said, a serviceable star. I thought John Wayne won any acting honors which might be given in this ham-fisted drama. At least his character showed depth and a certain range of emotion. Except for the steak-on-the-floor sequence, James Stewart intoned throughout.

No, the film’s a mess. Certainly, there are many good ideas, but nothing seems to have the power to hurdle the directorial malaise, the impoverished production, the lackluster acting, the stodgy camera work, the ridiculous make-up and the infantile political preaching. As I said, it’s bad John Ford. He’s done better, much, much better. Sergeant Rutledge is a better movie from this approximate point in the director's career, but you won’t see it being foisted as one of the best Westerns ever made, as so many seem to advance The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I remember Graham Greene defining some of his lesser books as “entertainments” rather than describe them in the larger, more robust identity of a novel. I’d say the movie at hand is just that, “an entertainment.” To call it a great film merely reduces the definition to gibberish; that some don’t agree with me when I call Ford’s movie over-rated is to be expected, though my opinion is hardly the heresy some may believe.

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