WESTERN DVDS
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
Paramount Home Video
Movie: 4.0; Disc: 3.5Released in black-and-white widescreen in 1962, the era when color had overtaken movies and the monochrome releases were in the minority, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a movie that has always been considered John Ford's last great film, and many people consider it seriously flawed by nature of its indoor sets and claustrophobic looks. But it is about time to grant this generally underpraised movie all the due it should have been awarded since 1962. Liberty Valance falls a hair under John Ford's The Searchers , for me the greatest Ford film and the greatest Western ever made.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is also perhaps the saddest movie ever made...it begins with a solemn train ride to a funeral, and it ends with another solemn train ride returning from that same funeral, punctuated with one of the greatest ironic final lines in movie history..."Nothing's too great for the man who shot Liberty Valance!"
The movie works on so many levels, our space too limited to define all of them here. On one level we have the textbook law of the new West invading the old law of the gun; we have the politicization of the West vs. the law of the individual; we have the hedonistic pleasures of the Old West vs. the self-sacrifices and self-deceptions of the New West.
Seldom has a Western been this rich in complex, well-acted characters: James Stewart as the tenderfoot lawyer high on ideals and ambitions; John Wayne as the seasoned Westerner living alone with his black servant/friend; and Vera Miles as the woman who loves both men but decides to marry the up-and-coming Senator over the grizzled cowboy whose lifestyle is slowly being phased out. One of the strongest performances (besides his masterful work as Ethan in The Searchers ) John Wayne ever delivers, his performance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of total self-sacrifice for his friend (James Stewart) and lover (Vera Miles). Cold-bloodedly killing the maniac Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin in one of his most effective, evil performances) to save the life of James Stewart, and allowing Stewart to take credit for the deed to launch a political career, which in turn allows him to win the heart of Vera Miles, his performance is so subtle that the implications will tear your heart out. The sequence when John Wayne tells Stewart "she's your girl now," that bitter and lost look on his face, well, people who say Wayne never acts should closely watch that sequence...and the one that comes immediately afterwards. In a hurtful rage, Wayne, more than slightly drunk, burns down his home, the one where he had been building an addition for Vera Miles to move in when they married.
And the entire movie's framing story revolves around the Senator (Stewart) and Miles returning to the town of Shinbone to attend the funeral of the recently departed Wayne. Vera Miles spends all her time returning to Wayne's burnt-out cottage and picking a cactus rose from his property to place on his coffin, while the Senator spends his time being interviewed by the press. Stewart's final gesture that he will finish out his current term of office and then retire, returning to live in Shinbone, seems too little too late and comes off more as a gesture of regret, for Stewart comes to realize that Wayne was the love of Vera Miles' life, not him, and that his entire political life was based upon a lie, that Wayne was indeed the man who killed Liberty Valance. As the train solemnly leaves the station at Shinbone after the funeral we see the looks of regret and sorrow written all over the faces of Miles and Stewart. The viewer is left to think about the selfless acts committed by John Wayne, the man who sacrificed everything for what he thought were the right things, putting other people before himself. Truly the intensity of the loner cowboy hero has never been more emotionally nor profoundly displayed, and this complexity of character is precisely what makes The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance an absolutely classic movie experience.
The Paramount DVD release contains a pristine letterboxed print that comes with a theatrical trailer. The movie has never looked nor sounded better!
RIO BRAVO
Warner Home Video
Movie: 3.5; Disc: 3.5Two camps of John Wayne fans exist: those who think Wayne's finest film is John Ford's The Searchers and the others who feel Wayne's best work is in Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo . For instance, John Ford's The Searchers does contain adventure sequences, but at heart it is a drama built around John Wayne's character of Ethan coming to grips with his bigotry and internal hatred of the Indian. Six years later, when Ford directed The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance , the adventure quotient had all but been removed from the Western, only leaving the drama behind. But for me, this added element of delving into the human spirit is what makes Ford's films superior.
However, Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo is more adventure-oriented in the traditional Western framework. In other words, Hawks includes all the traditional Western genre stereotypes, but at the same time, the movie features insightful characterizations that contain depth. John Wayne plays Chance, the town sheriff, becoming the grand stereotyped cowboy hero that he does so well, and never better than here. Walter Brennan becomes the lame deputy, his performance similar to his character on The Real McCoys television series. Ricky Nelson plays the young rebel, at first refusing to commit to any side or moral code, but gradually deciding to help Chance and his deputies as the tide turns against them. But the movie's major performance is that of Dean Martin, as the deputy returning to "active duty" after a two-year drunk, and a man unsure if he is more dedicated to the badge or to the bottle. The subtlety of the performance and the manner in which close friend Chance refuses to become an enabler or molly-coddler brings another level to Wayne's performance. Also interesting is a youthful Angie Dickinson as the tainted woman who gradually allows herself to fall in love with Chance, their relationship awkwardly cemented (contrasted to Wayne's self-assuredness in more macho aspects of his job) as the movie evolves.
The movie's premise is the stuff of classic Westerns: The good guys are sequestered in the town jail holding onto their prisoner, a cold-blooded murderer, whose brother and his gang are trying to free at any cost, no matter how many lives are sacrificed. This claustrophobic motif has been used by Hawks before ( The Thing , for instance) and is a mainstay plot development of the Western genre; however, Rio Bravo perhaps develops this premise the best it has ever been done, and all the elements--tension, character, action, excellent color photography, romance--congeal to form a classic Western of the most traditional variety.
For me, The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are richer, more complex and less traditional in how they approach the Hollywood Western, but when it comes to nail-bitting suspense, tension, action and adventure, Rio Bravo becomes a classic Western, all its own.
This Warner Video DVD release contains a beautiful widescreen print, and the supplementals include cast/filmmaker profiles and a theatrical trailer.