The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Country: US
Technical: bw 122m
Director: John Ford
Cast: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles
Synopsis:
A lawyer rids the town of a degenerate bully and pretendant to the status of local representative, but returns years later as senator to tell the newspaper what really happened that night.
Review:
Ford's mature Western is a culmination of the trend towards greater interrogation of the genre that began with The Searchers. Some, like Halliwell, seem to have missed the point about the bitter conflict in this film between fact and legend, between the civilising influence of law and order, and the more attractive ideal of the maverick gunman, meting out justice for himself, as if Ford were trying to explain the devotion of his body of work to a romanticised union of the two up to that point. Here he shows them in their stark, irreconcilable discreteness, with reminiscences of earlier films (Stagecoach, Young Mr Lincoln) softening the effect.
Country: US
Technical: bw 122m
Director: John Ford
Cast: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles
Synopsis:
A lawyer rids the town of a degenerate bully and pretendant to the status of local representative, but returns years later as senator to tell the newspaper what really happened that night.
Review:
Ford's mature Western is a culmination of the trend towards greater interrogation of the genre that began with The Searchers. Some, like Halliwell, seem to have missed the point about the bitter conflict in this film between fact and legend, between the civilising influence of law and order, and the more attractive ideal of the maverick gunman, meting out justice for himself, as if Ford were trying to explain the devotion of his body of work to a romanticised union of the two up to that point. Here he shows them in their stark, irreconcilable discreteness, with reminiscences of earlier films (Stagecoach, Young Mr Lincoln) softening the effect.
Country: US
Technical: bw 122m
Director: John Ford
Cast: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles
Synopsis:
A lawyer rids the town of a degenerate bully and pretendant to the status of local representative, but returns years later as senator to tell the newspaper what really happened that night.
Review:
Ford's mature Western is a culmination of the trend towards greater interrogation of the genre that began with The Searchers. Some, like Halliwell, seem to have missed the point about the bitter conflict in this film between fact and legend, between the civilising influence of law and order, and the more attractive ideal of the maverick gunman, meting out justice for himself, as if Ford were trying to explain the devotion of his body of work to a romanticised union of the two up to that point. Here he shows them in their stark, irreconcilable discreteness, with reminiscences of earlier films (Stagecoach, Young Mr Lincoln) softening the effect.