The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may not be the film that altered the course of the Western genre, but you could consider it a major turning point in a genre that was in transition. In fact, when you consider the stars of the film and its content, you quickly realize that it is a movie that embodies changing circumstances and values.
The cast of this film is truly excellent, starring two titans of Hollywood’s Golden Age James Stewart and John Wayne. Lee Marvin and Vera Miles are also terrific – I could not imagine a more perfect Liberty Valance than Marvin – but it is John Wayne and James Stewart that represent the change. Released in 1962, John Ford elected to shoot the film in black and white because these big stars looked too old for the plot in color. They were getting old. An audience may have bought James Stewart as the Stately Senator in color, but as the bright young lawyer – that would have been a harder sell.
From the beginning of the film, it is clear that the world in which it takes place is changing. Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) returns to the town he left years before by train, when previously it had only been accessible by stagecoach. The stagecoach is a major symbol of the western genre, rendered useless by modern technology. In the beginning of the film before the flashback that comprises its main content, the stagecoach remains only as a dust covered relic. In addition to the railroad, Hallie (Vera Miles) expresses desire for other kinds of modernization, saying, “…maybe someday, if they ever dam the river, we’ll have lots of water, and all kinds of flowers.” The desire for change is present, and the means for it not far off. And with the arrival of the aforementioned bright young lawyer, more than just the physical landscape of the west is changing. Vigilantism and wild ways will soon be taken over by law and order.
Change is also evident in the actions of Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), a true western hero. There are many aspects to the code of the western hero, tantamount among them being that he does not fire unless drawn upon first. In Doniphon’s first encounter with Liberty Valance in this film, we see him abide by this rule, warning as Liberty is about to draw on him, “Try it, Liberty. Just try it.” If Liberty draws, Doniphon will draw too, but not before. But later, in Rance’s time of need during a duel, Doniphon shoots Valance from the shadows of an alley. No one else knows he was the man who shot Liberty Valance, other than Rance who is informed later, but Doniphon sure knows, and he does not take the fact that he broke his code lightly. It completely ruins him. He loses his girl, he descends into alcoholism, and he even tries to burn his house down with himself inside. That this descent begins immediately after the code is broken is surely not accidental – we are dealing with John Ford, perhaps the greatest director of westerns, and John Wayne, the prototypical western hero, both of whom knew this character as thoroughly as anyone. This marks a major development in the character of the western hero. It would be pushed further in the direction of anti-hero through the 60’s in Spaghetti Westerns, and flipped on its head entirely with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969.
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