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Online Store - Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
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List Price: $9.95
Our Price: $3.99
Your Save: $ 5.96 ( 60% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Paramount
Starring: John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien
Directed By: John Ford
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780792106982
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 0792106989
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: 1997-02-19
Running Time: 123
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1962-04-22
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Editorial Reviews:
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"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That's more than the code of a newspaperman in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; it's practically the operating credo of director John Ford, the most honored of American filmmakers. In this late film from a long career, Ford looks at the civilizing of an Old West town, Shinbone, through the sad memories of settlers looking back. In the town's wide-open youth, two-fisted Westerner John Wayne and tenderfoot newcomer James Stewart clash over a woman (Vera Miles) but ultimately unite against the notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's nostalgia for the past is tempered by his stark approach, unusual for the visual poet of Stagecoach and The Searchers. The two heavyweights, Wayne and Stewart, are good together, with Wayne the embodiment of rugged individualism and Stewart the idealistic prophet of the civilization that will eventually tame the Wild West. This may be the saddest Western ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose. --Robert Horton
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Another John Ford masterpiece
Comment: This is perhaps second only to The Searchers in the many great films John Ford directed. Again starring John Wayne as well as the always excellent James Stewart, Vera Miles and Lee Marvin. Essentially its a western which shows the beginning of the end for the old west.
If you watch this you need to remember that although this was made in 1962, and that John Ford had been making films since the early part of the 20th Century (1917). So this has a different feel to any sort of modern film. The pacing is much more relaxed and the amount of 'action' that occurs is limited to two or three key scenes.
However, the performances are uniformly excellent, the script and dialogue are mesmerising and Fords direction is impeccable. What all this 'old-fashioned' film-making allows Ford to do though, is fully develop the characters. So you get a wonderful mixture of sadness, occasional comic moments and a few typical classic western moments.
This is a film that will reward you through repeated viewings.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Comment: What a great western. You can't get much better than this one. John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart together for get about it!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Film for American Studies Departments
Comment: There is good reason to believe that the reviewer M. S. Anderson is as right as right can be. Having just edited an encyclopedia concerned with the Old West, I can confirm that the professorial class is keeping this movie alive. After several months of reading seemingly hundreds of worshipful citations of this routine film and especially of its signature cliché--the meaningless line about printing the legend when the legend becomes fact (as if newspapers routinely print the truth!)--I began watching (in vain, as it happens) for references to the film that pointed out that the sets looked like fiberboard structures on the studio's back lot, the characterization was shallow and predictable, the script was trite and sounded clumsy on the tongue, O'Brien and some other supporting players were inadequate or worse, and Stewart and Wayne were not alone in being thirty years too old for their parts. (Can anyone tell whether audiences were or weren't supposed to laugh at Lee Marvin's villain, who is so cartoonishly evil that not only is he clad in black but he carries a whip!) The judgment of most of those who saw Liberty Valance for the first time in its initial run was right: let this undistinguished movie ride off into the sunset, never to be heard from again. What a shame that the members of the professoriate--the radical environmentalists of American popular culture--insist that this waste matter be forcibly recycled through the captive minds of America's young, a large number of whom seem now, alas, to be reviewers and commenters devoted to bestowing five stars on one-star films here at Amazon.com and to proclaiming unhelpful everyone who disagrees with them.
John Ford made some pretty fine films. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, sadly, is not one of them.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Print The Legend
Comment: Stylistically, this is a very interesting film from director John Ford. The film begins with alot of colorful characterizations familiar to audiences with films as diverse as "Stagecoach" and "The Searchers". There's also alot of brutal realism which would anticipate the work of Sam Peckinpah. It's also interesting that Ford contrasts the traditional western as represented by John Wayne with the new west represented by James Stewart who made a series of "psychological" westerns in and around this time. Also noteworthy is the presence of Lee Van Cleef who made his mark in the terrific Sergio Leone westerns in the sixties. What is Ford trying to say here? Probably sensing that his days behind the camera were nearing an end he probably understood that a re-evaluation was in order. The paradox here is that the traditional hero represented by John Wayne is left to lick his wounds in the darkness while the more neurotic Stewart is the supposed victor. The law of the gun is being replaced by the law book. Ford sees this as a good thing but not without a touch of poignancy. This is a film that some viewers may be confused by but taken in the context of the Ford canon it makes perfect sense.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A parody
Comment: This is an unintentional parody of the Western movie. The cliches, stereotypes, corny lines, and macho nonsense are present in abundance. There are signs of trouble from the beginning, when we learn immediately that there will be a flashback: Jimmy Stewart is shouting his lines. Later, John Wayne swaggers and sniggers, Andy Devine whimpers and attempts to be amusing, Edmund O'Brien does an awful drunk act, things are rowdy in the local saloon...well, you understand if you're over 13. Watch how fast Stewart recovers from a savage beating after he sips some brandy. And don't miss the by now obligatory civil rights salute. The ending is wholly predictable. My educated guess is that John Ford, Lee Marvin, and many others on the set were tipping the bottle a bit too much. This is a dreadful, if often quite funny, film. It was Ford's worst, Stewart's worst, and ranks at least fourth from the bottom in Wayne's career.
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