The other day, I watched one of my favorite movies, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (hereafter TMWSLB). A couple of things occur to me, and I offer the following topics for discussion:
Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), in the midst of a little spat with Hallie (Vera Miles), tells her, “You’re mighty pretty when you’re angry”. This line or something like it is a cliché now, of course, in addition to being something you don’t want to try with a real person. Did TMWSLB originate it? Anyone know of an earlier movie that uses it? TMWSLB came out in 1962, BTW.
John Wayne, who seemed to coast through a lot of movies just being John Wayne, delivers a pretty good performance here. I liked how neither the movie nor Wayne shied away from showing Doniphon being kind of a dick to Pompey (Woody Strode). That seemed to be pretty realistic to me, given the setting. Anyway, I hesitate to say this publicly, but I think Wayne out-acted Jimmy Stewart in this movie, at least until the very end. Stewart and Miles leaving town on the train is a great scene, and Stewart is excellent in switching back and forth from his puffed-up, hands-on-lapels Senator, to a heartbroken, guilt-ridden man.
OK, the main questions I wanted to pose (hopefully past the preview now): Why does Doniphon keep it a secret that he shot Valance? Why not either step out of the shadows and clearly blast Valance in the first place, or show up the next day and tell everyone, “Yeah, Ranse put a hole in the stable; I shot Valance”? By keeping it a secret, Doniphon loses not only the credit for saving the town, but also the woman he was planning to marry. I can think of a couple possible reasons, but none really satisfy me. Does Tom have some respect or affection for Ranse and decide that he doesn’t want to humiliate him? Maybe, but I don’t see much evidence of that. Tom is a bit of a jerk to him, splattering paint on him in the “practice” scene and getting a punch in the jaw for it, and in general they just don’t seem like they’re destined to be pals. Does Tom think Hallie is better off with Ranse? Again, maybe, but she clearly likes Tom, and the West is still a scary place where men like Tom offer protection from men like Valance. How would Hallie be better off with Ranse, unless Tom predicts the whole Senator thing? Which leads to the third possibility – Tom does predict that the West is changing, and Ranse represents the future. By letting everyone believe Ranse shot Valance, Tom puts Ranse in a better place to lead the modernization of the territory, even at a great personal cost to Tom. This is the option that I lean toward, but I don’t see Tom really caring a lot one way or the other about statehood and such early on. So, I’m not really happy with this option either.
And, finally, does Hallie know the whole story? At the end, when the conductor tells Ranse, “Nothing’s too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance,” we see how painful the lie is for Ranse, but Hallie hardly blinks. I think she doesn’t know, and Ranse is guilty over having duped her all these years.
I just love this movie, and I think it’s one of the saddest movies I’ve seen. Hallie has lived a life she probably didn’t want, separated from her family and home; she wishes Ranse “knew how often [she’s] dreamed” of returning. And Ranse’s life is built on a lie that he’s sick of. When he tries to confess, the world doesn’t want to hear it. Neither has shared enough correspondence with their friends to know that Appleyard hasn’t been sheriff and Doniphon hasn’t carried a gun “for years”. Now, two old an unhappy people, they are filled with regret and loss.
This is the interpretation I’ve always assumed. Valance is the reckless freedom (he isn’t named “Liberty” for nothing) of the old West, while Stewart represents the vanguard of civilization. Vance thinks he can stop it with his violence and bullwhip–is there anything more crazy than seeing him rip up those lawbook pages in the opening scene? Tom is smarter, and knows the time of independent men like Vance (and, to some extent, himself) is coming to an end. He also knows that such men cannot be reasoned into accepting the transition (Vance) or equipped to lead it (i.e. Tom knows he can’t reasonably be a part of it, given his reputation).
He uses Vance’s death as an opportunity to bolster Ranse’s career and ease the transition. If instead he says he’s the one who shot Vance, it’s just another Wild-West shootout between more-or-less lawless gunslingers. Having Ranse do the shooting mythologizes it–“civilization triumphs over lawless brutality”. Tom realized that myth had power–not just for Ranse, but to smooth the whole civilizing process. Granted he’s probably not interested in the details of statehood, but he knows the general march of civilization is inevitable.
I saw it less in terms of “the march of civilization” and more of a personal thing. Tom wanted Millie to be happy. He knew that she loved Ranse and did not love Tom. Ranse was about to get himself killed, so Tom saved Ranse in order to make Millie happy. Kind of a Tale of Two Cities or Casablanca thing.
In the immortal classic 1956 The Conqueror, John Wayne (as Temujin, known to the world as Ghengis Khan) tells Susan Hayward, “You are beautiful in your wrath!” Can’t believe that movie got snubbed by Oscar.
I’ll have to watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance again; sounds like there are nuances I’ve forgotten.
“My blood says, ‘Take this Tartar woman!’”
ETA: Lee Marvin made a great mean sonofabitch, didn’t he?
I’d go with a combination of things. One you already mentioned, that Doniphon recognizes that his time had past, and that Hallie was better of the Ranse. The other reason is that shooting Valance from ambush under cover of darkness was such a betrayal of Doniphon’s values that he didn’t think it was honorable, and it certainly wasn’t anything he though he could take credit for. I think that, maybe even more than losing Hallie, is what destroyed Tom Doniphon.
I’ve always leaned to the ‘she’s better off with him, and now he’s better able to care for her’ interpretation. After all, ‘‘The man who shot Liberty Valance’’ is gonna be left alone by a whole lot of assholes, the whole senator/statehood thing notwithstanding.
Having said that let’s add that what Tom did was murder, not the ‘‘fair’’ fight that Ranse got credit for, and us Dopers all know didn’t really happen in the west like it’s told in Hollywood. Granted, nobody but Strother Martin (wasn’t he great) was gonna shed a tear for Liberty, and if it’d happend in the wild nobody would have asked or cared, but in town too many people might, why take the chance. Tom being hung for shooting Liberty Valance could only happen in a post-modern western
For the most part, Liberty needed killing. Tom knew that, but he did it the wrong way and because of that, he couldn’t take credit. He knew that too. A man doesn’t interfere with another man’s fight. It isn’t done. And Tom did it. He also did it from the shadows. That isn’t done either. If he would have drawn down on Valence after Liberty killed Rance, it would have been acceptable, but Hallie cared for Rance and it would hurt her if he would have died, so Tom couldn’t let Rance die even if it brought dishonor to himself (which the shooting of Liberty by Tom would have if it came out).
Tom did care for Rance. The fondness wasn’t manifested until Rance slugged him though. He then knew that Rance was a “real” man. Until then he was just another dude.
The two men are two sides of the same coin, and I think Hallie knows this. I think she loves them both, and she is the driving force for each of them. Would Rance have become a senator without her? I have always had my doubts. Would Tom have become the largest cattle baron in the Southwest if she would have gone with him? Probably. But she would have been just as torn. I sometimes think of McClintok or Big Jake as a “What if Hallie had chosen Tom?” sequel.
Great points about Tom breaking his own code, and the code of the times, by interfering with Ranse’s fight and shooting Valance from the shadows. That had never occurred to me, but it makes a lot of sense. So, when Tom gets drunk and burns the house down, nearly killing himself, it’s as much out of guilt and shame as out of the knowlege he’s just lost Hallie. I think I can get behind that interpretation more than the ones I was hashing out before.
Speaking of Strother Martin shedding a tear for Valance, I love Doc Willoughby’s reaction–kicking Valance over and saying, simply, “Dead”, with a little drunken lilt.
And what about Hallie’s knowlege of what happened? There might not be enough on screen to make a strong case either way, but I don’t think Ranse – or anyone else – ever told her either.
I’d have had Doc Willoughby reach down and take the gold piece that he had previously spurned out of Liberty’s pocket. Still, a good line.
I don’t think Ranse ever told her, but I don’t think she ever didn’t know. Women are notorious for not keeping secrets, that’s what makes it so easy for them to keep them. A man carries his life on his face, a woman does it in her heart. Whatever Hallie knew, or when she knew it, Ranse will never suspect.
Not true. It’s clear that Hallie loved Tom, and probably moreso than she did Ranse. However, she admired Ranse more, and with good reason; it never even would have occurred to Tom to teach Hallie how to read (even though it is clear that he has basic literacy himself). In the end, Ranse offered her more opportunities, and Tom knew that the era of free range ranching–his life–was coming to an end, and along with it cow herders like himself. The metaphor of the roses (Doniphon’s desert rose versus the real roses that Ranse offers) applies to the men themselves. I essentially agree with the analysis of CJJ*; Tom knows that a man like Ranse–one who will stand up for principles, but who backs them up with the rule of law, not personal violence–is the future, and that statehood is inevitable. Hallie might have stayed with him, but they would be stuck in time; Doniphon had no way to change. (Witness the still-burned out addition onto the house when Ranse and Hallie return to Shinbone.)
There are two things I find curious about the film: one is that the team of John Ford and John Wayne–who were both strongly identified with very traditional Westerns–chose to undermine the entire genre with this film. Other films had hints of the ugly underbelly of Western mythology, such as High Noon, Shane, or the noir-ish Bad Day At Black Rock, but this was the first (that I know of) to outright show that the black and white moralism of the genre was nothing but a myth; that even good men make compromises (and in the case of Ranse, lie in wait and kill in cold blood), and the fanciful stories of good triumphing are just as manipulated as any yellow journalism published by Hearst. This film presaged and opened up the door for more explicitly revisionist films like The Wild Bunch, High Plains Drifter, and Unforgiven. When Gene Hackman is telling the true tale of the death of “Two-Gun Cochcran” at the hands of a drunken English Bob, he might as well be talking about Ranse, who could barely hit a paint can with the little ladies gun he had bought.
The other is, in the end, how unhappy everyone seems. Despite being given her real roses, Hallie seems to pine for Shinbone, and feels guilt about what became of Tom. Ranse carries the guilt over having lied (albeit at the insistance of Doniphon) despite all of the good things he did in his career. The change, while inevitable, doesn’t seem to have suited anyone particularly well.
Now there’s a relentlessly manipulative film, and the ostensible hero comes off as a complete sap. Don’t get me started on Casablanca.
It’s been about a thousand years since I watched Angel and the Badman, another Wayne film, but if I recall correctly, Wayne plays a pretty bad SOB who goes back and forth on his road to redemption. Looking over the plot summary again, it appears that he pauses his courtship of the Quaker girl long enough to steal some cattle and engage in other nefarious dealings with his former colleagues. He definitely does choose the path of the righteous man in the end, but he’s not painted as a purely good character.
Absolutely. You can see how Ranse is playing the role of Senator when it seems to be called for – grabbing the front of his coat, puffing out his chest, affecting an oratorical voice, and so on. He hates it. He can’t even pay last respects to Tom without having to stop to be The Senator. When the conductor stops by to offer him a new spitoon, he immediately slips into Senator mode, then just as quickly slips back into his real, sad-sack disposition. Hallie hardly looks at him in the carriage or the train. She doesn’t protest when he leaves her at the coffin to give an interview. She doesn’t seem to want comfort from him, and he doesn’t seem to be able to give it. I’d hate to judge their long life together on the basis of one very bad day, but their marriage seems more about duty and expectation than love.
That’s probably the one that’s (still!) stuck in my head. I used to listen to a lot of 50’s and 60’s music, and I remember it on the radio. Interestingly, Pitney is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and “TMWSLV” went to #4 in 1962. I still hate the song, though.
I tend to disagree. As a character, she always struck me as one who pretty much knew what was going on. Besides, do you really think that Rance could have stood up to her if she demanded to know what was going on?
You, in the OP suggest that her stoicism suggests she doesn’t know anything. I contend that it does just the opposite. If she didn’t know, she would have taken and shown a pride in the heroism of her husband, but since she does know he didn’t do the “heroic” act, and further she does know they are going to pay their respects to the man who really “shot Liberty Valence” she shows that strong, calm side.
My favorite character in that film will always be the drunken newspaper editor. I have tried to live up to his example all my life as a newspaper man. Well, him and the Walter Burns editor in The Front Page.
The Gene Pitney song was *not * in the movie. Neither was Eddie Grant’s “Romancing the Stone”.
I’ve always gone along with the idea that Tom was doing his part to build Ranse’s rep, knowing the territory needed a man like him to civilize the country. Being rude to him, while at the same time helping him learn to defend himself, was his way of toughening him up for the fights he’d have ahead of him. I didn’t see him as “giving” Hallie to him, though; that was her own decision, and she seemed like the type to make them herself. No question she kept a soft spot in her heart for Tom, hence the cactus flower on his coffin.
I always thought Ranse was too hard on himself for “living a lie” - he really did, after all, draw on Valance and shoot at him, repeatedly at that, really intending to kill him - and there was even some chance that he actually did, too. So where was the lie? Ranse really did act the man everyone else thought he had. We never knew for sure that Donophin’s bullet was the one that did the job, even though it’s probable, but what did it matter anyway?