“This is the west sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The famous line uttered by a newspaperman in John Ford’s masterpiece The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance symbolizes the mythological west that he and his most famous collaborator, John Wayne popularized. At 60 years old, it is the greatest western of Hollywood’s Golden Age, even usurping Ford’s own The Searchers that has always clambered its way near the top of greatest film lists.
The story focuses on Ransome Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart), an American senator arriving at the town of Shinbone with his wife, Hailey (Vera Miles), to attend the funeral of Tom Doniphon (Wayne). Through flashback, Stoddard tells his story to the press of first coming to the town as a young law graduate. The townsfolk are terrorised by gang leader Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin in a career-best role). Valance works for the local cattle barons, who are fighting the territory’s right to statehood. Doniphon is the only one who can stand up to Valance, but Stoddard believes that legal justice can prevail against him. In between that, there is a love triangle between Stoddard, Hailey and Doniphon. And then there is the question: who was the man who would eventually shoot Liberty Valance?
