The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance at 60: the great American western

John Ford’s 1962 masterwork remains a surprisingly downbeat film about the west with never-better performances from James Stewart and John Wayne“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.

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