James Stewart

Directed by Henry Koster

Yesterday I wrote up my assessment of Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) but it wasn’t till today as I was going over it that I realized what, for me, was the most significant aspect of the movie.

It is accurate. At least on the surface level, it is spot on. The Hobbs family vacation was our family’s vacation, at least as far as the look and the social aspects are concerned.

The movie is a bit of fluff, yes, but I really do think what attracts me to it is what I imagine to be a nostalgia factor. The way the family travels in their station wagon was the way we travelled (though we didn’t have a station wagon but a burgundy 1964 Mercury Meteor with the inwardly slanted back window that opened).

The way the children behave, their interests and activities … that was my sister (dances, teen social interaction and anxiety), and me (radio and TV fascination).

And Mr. Hobbs … that outfit he wears to the beach? That was my Dad. He wore a similar hat and similar bathing suit and jacket, a weirdly half towel thing as it was partly made of terrycloth, like the pocket cuffs and collar trim.

It’s hard to imagine now that such a world actually existed, that people did such things and dressed in such ways, but they did. If I were I to rummage through old family photos I could likely find many that showed us looking just like the Hobbs family and particularly my father, right down to the bathing suit and hat. (Dad also had the same, skinny body type as James Stewart.)

As for the movie itself and my assessment, it goes like this:

As much as this 1962 family comedy, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation,  is a weak contender in the list of Jimmy Stewart movies, particularly when set against a Vertigo or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Harvey, it is surprisingly enjoyable. Despite suffering from the flaws of that genre “60s family comedy,” meaning the clichés and so on, it has its moments and there are times you can’t help but laugh.

A lot of this is from the performances of both Jimmy Stewart (who I suspect found this an easy character to play) and Maureen O’Hara. The roles weren’t stretches by any means, but the performances were good.

Mr. Hobbs plans a vacation. However, while he imagines something with just he and his wife, maybe something romantic, she is determined to take the opportunity to bring the family together and have everyone bond as a family, including wedded children, their spouses and children. It’s a veritable tribe spending a month together.

Reluctantly, Mr. Hobbs accedes and the antics begin. The house they’ve rented is falling apart. The grandchildren are acting up. The Hobbs’ married children are having marital problems and the children who are still at home are dealing with their teen years.

Honestly, to me, this doesn’t sound promising. Yet it somehow works, though not always. The director, Henry Koster (who also directed Stewart in 1950’s Harvey), manages to get some good visual humour into the film, to a large part through Stewart’s performance. He also gets some winning performances from people like John McGiver, who is hilarious as the pompous Mr. Martin Turner.

The movie also manages some good running jokes through the movie like the women talking on the party line (always about operations), the “barn swallow” joke in the bird watching scene, the shapely beach neighbour (Valerie Varda) and Mr. Hobbs discomfort around her, Mr. Hobbs always carrying luggage, as other jokes.

On the other hand, there is an opening and closing to the film, a conceit, that is completely unnecessary and, frankly, a bit stupid. It carries on a bit through some voiceovers that are also largely unnecessary. And there is a bit of a 1960s beach party thing with Fabian and an arbitrary song inclusion.

Yes, it’s a bit of a mixed bag of good and bad. Overall, however, it ends up being a nice, pleasant movie that moves along at a good clip. It’s not the kind of movie that changes cinema but then it doesn’t intend to be. It just wants to entertain in a comfortable way and that’s just what it does.

Note:

For what it is worth, that vehicle the Hobbs family travels in is a 1960 Dodge Polara station wagon … not that I, a person who doesn’t drive, would know.

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Directed by Henry Koster

“Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be’ – she always called me Elwood – ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.” – Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd

When I was younger I had the good fortune of seeing the movie Harvey for the first time under perfect conditions. I knew nothing about it; I was completely unaware of its existence. I was probably around fourteen and I’m pretty sure I saw it on TV one night.

I started watching and there it unfolded, a delightful story about a lovely man with an invisible six foot rabbit, a pooka, as a his best friend.

A movie like Harvey is easily dismissed as being light – a bit of pleasant fluff, not the sort of thing worth considering when discussing “important” movies, the real thing. Harvey often is dismissed this way. Myself, I think that is a mistake.

The story is relatively straightforward: Elwood P. Dowd is independently wealthy, having received an inheritance years ago (including a large house). So he spends his days wandering about, going to bars and getting tipsy with his invisible friend. More importantly, he meets people, engages them in conversation, often invites them home (and they’re often the down and out) and just generally enjoying the company and diversity of people.

His activities and, more importantly, is belief in a six foot tall invisible rabbit results in most people considering him nuts, though most see it as harmless. Elwood is such a nice man.

His sister Vita (Josephine Hull) does have problems with it. She lives in the same house. How is she to present her marriageable daughter to the world and find potential husband material when her brother keeps showing up and is so obviously unbalanced – or at least a social problem?

Ultimately, she decides to have Elwood committed to an asylum.

The problem, however, is that with his very engaging and pleasant manner, and with his invisible friend Harvey (a mischievous spirit), everything goes sideways as it is Vita who is committed, Elwood the doctors mistake as the sane one, and chaos that builds and builds as everyone keeps mistaking who is who.

Perhaps an even bigger problem is that while people pretend otherwise, others see Harvey too – including Vita and the head of the asylum, Dr. Chumley.

And everyone loves Harvey for the calming effect he has, which may be why Elwood is so easy going and darned likeable.

I don’t think you could call this movie slapstick or screwball, though there are elements of those in the chaos that keeps building. And I don’t think you could call it a romantic comedy, though there are elements of romance in it.

It is, however, very funny and very charming as Elwood with his easy-going pleasantness and Harvey with his mischief work their magic on all the other characters who, prior to encountering the pair, are caught up in their own worlds and worries. If the movie has a message, I suppose it would be, “Lighten up.” Life is so much more pleasant that way.

Harvey began on the stage as a play of the same name by Mary Chase (who also wrote the screenplay). Jimmy Stewart played Elwood on stage, though he wasn’t the actor who originated the role (that was Frank Fay). Part of the reason Stewart took on the stage role was because this was a movie he very much wanted to do on screen.

When released, the film didn’t exactly do boffo business. It was something of a disappointment in those terms and Stewart afterward even questioned whether making the movie was, for him, a career mistake. The years have changed all that and, in the end, it was one of his favourite roles.

I think that when considering Jimmy Stewart that while the films he made with Frank Capra, Anthony Mann and Alfred Hitchcock all have to be considered, a movie like Harvey also has to be considered if only because I think it represents an aspect of the man, a way of seeing that was an essential part of who he was. While the other roles may have tapped into the darker and more complex elements of his character, his sense of how the world should be is articulated in Harvey and, as contrast, provides some context and meaning to those other roles.

Harvey is the aspirational Jimmy Stewart.

And it’s an absolutely delightful movie.

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Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

I identify with the title of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and the character of Scotty ‘John’ Ferguson (Jimmy Stewart) because I’ve experienced vertigo many times, largely due to my epilepsy (not a serious condition). I’ve lost my sense of balance and fallen as I passed out. But as for the movie itself …

I’ve seen this movie a number of times over the years and, as many have said, it’s the kind of movie that not only holds up to multiple viewings but reveals more of itself with each viewing. On the surface, it’s a murder mystery. But it’s multi-layered. It’s about obsession and identity and, yes, even love.

The plot? As per IMDb: “A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.” Of course, there is a great deal more to it than this.

The wife, in this case, is not really the wife but a kind of doppelganger, a woman made up to look like the wife in order to create a situation whereby the real wife is murdered. The wife, Madeleine Elster, is impersonated by Judy Barton (Kim Novak). Judy, as Madeleine, creates a mystery that will draw Scotty in and allow him to be witness to ‘Madeleine’s suicide.’

The false Madeleine has a strange obsession, a psychological problem, but this is a sham – part of the deceit. Things get complicated, however, because Scotty has a psychological problem – acrophobia – and vertigo as a result. His problem is not a sham but the real thing. More than that, he doesn’t get just drawn in to the mystery of Madeleine, he falls in love with her, then becomes obsessed with her, an even larger psychological problem.

Nothing is ever simple in a Hitchcock movie, though on the surface the movies appear that way. In the case of Vertigo, for example, look at the use of names. Both main characters have two. Novak is Madeleine/Judy. Stewart is John/Scotty. In both cases, the further you are from the reality of the person, the more the first name applies (Madeleine and John, or Mr. Ferguson). The closer you get to the real person, the more the other name applies (Judy/Scotty). In a scene where Scotty formally introduces himself to Judy (as Madeleine) he says his name is Mr. Ferguson, or John, but people close to him call him Scotty. The first name is the image, the second name is the real thing.

The movie is about fantasy (or image) and reality and the destructive qualities of the fantasy to the reality.

Hitchcock is famous for his portrayal of women on screen. They are blonde-haired, fashionably bound-up ice queens. They’re his obsession, his fetish. As Roger Ebert says in his review, “Over and over in his films, Hitchcock took delight in literally and figuratively dragging his women through the mud–humiliating them, spoiling their hair and clothes as if lashing at his own fetishes.”

What makes Vertigo interesting is Kim Novak’s Judy character. As Madeleine, she’s the Hitchcock ice queen. As Judy, she is earthier, more approachable, even slatternly. She’s real and as a consequence a sympathetic character. She’s not blonde, but has reddish-brown hair. She’s a real person, not a fantasy, but a real person being destroyed by the fantasy.

The movie is often referred to as Hitchcock’s most personal and this is why. He is taking his obsession with his ice queen image and ripping it apart, dissecting it and studying, not the image, but his own obsession which, as the movie shows us, is ultimately destructive.

Both characters are desperately in love: Judy with Scotty, Scotty with his image of Madeleine. Because she loves Scotty, Judy accedes to his demands to remake her as Madeleine. But as Hitchcock’s directing shows us, the more the obsession controls their lives, the more they fall into a swirling abyss of fantasy and reality that must end badly.

Over 50 years old, Vertigo stands up as an enthralling movie, a magnificent confluence of directing, story, theme and performance. Both Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak were never better than in their portrayals of Scotty and Judy. And Hitchcock’s performance as director is virtuoso. The movie is littered with clues, hints and meanings. They’re suggested by what he has the camera do, how the sets are designed and how he uses them, by the lighting and through Bernard Herrman’s score.

It’s an incredible orchestration of all the elements of film and what a great movie should be: endlessly rewarding with all it offers up with each viewing.

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Directed by Frank Capra

I had forgotten how much in love with Jean Arthur I was. I remembered as I watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Originally intended as a follow up to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (and titled Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington), Gary Cooper, who was in the first film, couldn’t get released from his studio contract to do the movie so enter Jimmy Stewart and a new title, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The director of Deeds, however, was the same: Frank Capra. As was the female star: Jean Arthur.

It’s not surprising that I often get the title wrong, referring to it incorrectly as Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington.

To get down to the point – this is a great movie and one you couldn’t possibly mistake as the work of any director other than Capra. It has all the sentimentality, all the schmaltz, of a Capra film and as often happens in his movies, he makes it work.

The story is fairly simple (as they tend to be in Frank Capra’s movies). A rube is appointed senator and comes to Washington D.C. with wide eyes and big ideals. He’s chosen as someone easy to manipulate and is supposed to vote as he’s told to, his puppet strings being controlled by a big money man who is the real power operating in the backrooms of America’s capital.

Cynicism and self-interest are the order of the day and the rube, Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) eventually sees all his dreams and ideals in tatters and is about to shuffle off back home with his tail between his legs. But …

His assistant, Saunders (Jean Arthur), a cynical woman who has been appointed to handle the yokel, has had some of her own ideals restored in watching the young idealist in Washington and her own romantic notions of being able to do some good come back to her, if only faintly. Not ready to see these flimsy hopes dashed this soon, she gives Smith a pep talk and provides him with information and tools on how Washington really works so he can give it one more shot.

He does and we find ourselves with the movie’s third act, the famous filibustering Mr. Smith holding the floor in the Senate, fighting for his lost cause and, in that fight, the ideals the United States was founded on.

It’s all corny as hell. That’s why it’s called Capri-corn. And it works.

While Jimmy Stewart is good in the film and today it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Mr. Smith, I can see how Gary Cooper might have done it. I also don’t think it’s the best example of Stewart’s work. It may be because it’s a Capra movie but it strikes me that his “aw shucks” persona may be a bit over-emphasized here. He may be a little bit over the top.

Jean Arthur, however, is dead on the mark. She’s perfect in the movie as the cynical Saunders. (If you want a movie trivia question, you can ask people what her character’s first name is. The answer would be Clarissa.) She also works beautifully with Thomas Mitchell, who plays the equally cynical Diz Moore, a reporter.

Also wonderful? The magnificent Claude Rains as Senator Joseph Paine, the man who sees his old self in the young Jefferson Smith and who increasingly finds it difficult to live with the compromises he’s made to become a senator.

And then there’s Eugene Pallette and all the other supporting cast on whom the movie’s success depends. Interestingly, the first part of the movie, maybe about 20 minutes or so, depend entirely on that cast. We don’t see Stewart until a fair amount of exposition has gone by and Arthur we don’t see until even later. This opening works, however, despite having so much background to establish, thanks to the cast that make it magical and Capra’s direction which keeps the pace quick, amusing and engaging.

Although I’ve seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington many times, each time I do I get caught up in it. It’s a fantasy, a myth or folktale, and works on this level. It doesn’t have the airs of the urban sophisticate but that is its point.

And an aside:

Here are two interesting bits of information about Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart from Arthur’s bio on IMDb. They seem almost contradictory:

1. (Jean Arthur) turned down Donna Reed’s role in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) because she didn’t want to work with James Stewart again.
2. Even though Jean (Arthur) and James Stewart never bonded off-screen, Jimmy called Jean “the finest actress I ever worked with. No one had her humor, her timing”.

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Directed by Otto Preminger

Although I was confused about where exactly Anatomy of a Murder was taking place (Michigan, it seems), it was a great, enthralling courtroom drama of the noir variety. It has a great late 50’s black and white look, somewhat similar to Kiss Me Deadly, though I think this is a far better film. (I wouldn’t take the similarity very far either. It’s just something in the period look they have in common.)

Jimmy Stewart is great in this movie. Some argue it’s his best performance, and there’s something to be said for that. He has the laconic air and halting speech he’s famous for and it works well here as a kind of stategic approach to getting at the truth of things. It catches others off guard.

He’s a small town lawyer, formerly chief prosecutor (holding the post for ten years). Why he’s no longer in the position isn’t really explained but you get hints his leaving was under a shadow, or at least troubled somehow.

It seems all his character does now is fish, drink and take small, penny-ante cases to pay his bills (which he does badly). Then a big case falls in his lap.

After taking a long time asking questions, mulling things over, and in no apparent hurry to get involved, he finally takes the case and the film really gets underway. (In fact the first portion of the film is a bit slow.)

The case he has is this: a woman (Lee Remick) has been raped. Her soldier husband (Ben Gazzara) has gone out and shot the alleged rapist dead. The soldier is now on trial for murder. Stewart’s job is to defend the soldier. But as he points out to his client, there is really no defense for him … except, possibly, one. The murder being deliberate (an hour after hearing from his wife about the rape), he can’t argue passion. The time element makes it pre-meditated. Gazzara’s only hope is to argue for insanity – an “irrepresible urge.”

There are various complications along the way, including help for the prosecution via the Attorney General’s office in the person of George C. Scott who plays his role with relish, informing it with a kind of conniving smugness.

What really sets Anatomy of a Murder in the noir category is its overarching moral ambivalence. If you pay attention as you watch, you realize that there really are no “good guys” here – not even Stewart, though his performance and the direction align the audience’s sympathies with him.

But he’s defending a man who has committed murder. He is trying to get him off scott free. You know by what Gazzara says and doesn’t say, and by his performance, that he is guilty. And you know Stewart knows this when he takes the case. The trial is really about playing fast and loose with the law. And both sides in the case do this.

In the case of the woman who was raped, the incident seems to have meant little more to her than stubbing a toe. It’s as if somewhat had given her a quick kiss, not violently raped her.

Of course, her character is a victim in other ways. She’s slatternly and flirtatious and you know from certain scenes, and by the way Remick plays her, she is a woman trapped by abusive men. She’s lonely and seems to gravitate toward men who treat her badly. Her relationship with her husband, Gazzara, suggests domestic violence, though it’s implied and not overtly stated.

At the end of the movie, while there is a resolution (the trial ends) there is no moral resolution. Nothing has changed. Justice has been thrown out the window. The victim will continue to be victimized. While the man who raped her may be dead, she continues on with the one who abuses her. (It’s interesting to see how her character changes in the film, allows us to see more of who she is, such as her lonliness, then at the film’s end, as she meets Stewart’s character going up the stairs to hear the verdict, she’s back to her previous clothing and flirtatious manner. Again, nothing has changed.)

Despite a few Hollywood elements to lighten the tone at the end, this is a dark film. The hero, Stewart, at the end is little better than those he has been up against.

The movie concludes with a wry look from Jimmy Stewart and a tone of bemused hopelessness as if the director, Otto Preminger, is saying, “That’s people for you. What can you do?”

(Originally posted in 2003.)

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I’ve just started reading Marc Eliot’s book, Jimmy Stewart: A Biography. Having just begun, I can’t say anything about it’s merits, though I can say I read Eliot’s book from a few years ago, Cary Grant: A Biography and enjoyed it. I’m not sure why, but I like reading biographies of Hollywood’s luminaries of the “golden” years. I do have a theory, though.

I think I read these books because they prompt me to go back and rewatch movies, some I had almost completely forgotten about. In Stewart’s case, Wikipedia says he, “… appeared in 92 films, television programs and shorts.” So, although I have quite a few Jimmy Stewart films they are just a smidgeon of what he made. But they’re almost all good ones!

Last night, I decided to go through some of them and decided to start with 1939’s Destry Rides Again. If you haven’t seen Destry, you’ve no idea what you’re missing. It’s a western comedy, with Jimmy Stewart playing a gunshy lawmen brought in to bring order to the lawless town of Bottleneck. It also features Marlene Dietrich. You can take a look at my 2003 review here.

Jimmy Stewart, by the way, was named third Greatest Male Star of All time by the American Film Institute (AFI), just behind Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant.

And some other Jmmy Stewart movies I’ve written about:

• Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
• The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
• Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Update:

I just found an old post, from 2005, regarding Eliot’s previous book (the one on Cary Grant). The post is titled: Cary Grant — who was that guy?

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Directed by George Marshall

I think the best word to describe this movie is fun. Following the disappointment a few weeks ago of Five Card Stud, this western, Destry Rides Again, was a real treat.

Made in 1939, this is both a traditional Hollywood western in some respects, and in others a great spoof of those movies. At heart, it’s a comedy but, despite this, it also throws in the requisite western scenes. Often, however, there’s a certain tongue in cheek quality to them.

The story is pure western: the town of Bottleneck (great name!) is lawless. There’s a nasty land baron trying to seize the necessary lands to complete his control of the area. Once his, he can charge others inflated prices to cross those lands.

The town sheriff, trying to impose some law, is shot and killed, his body disposed of in such a way that it won’t be found. The corrupt town mayor then appoints the town drunk as sheriff.

Now there is no law in Bottleneck. But … The town drunk sobers up.

He takes his bogus position seriously and therefore sends for Destry (Jimmy Stewart), the son of another famous lawman.

Destry arrives and the fun really gets going. He’s not what anyone expects.

He’s calm, relatively mild-mannered, doesn’t wear guns … doesn’t even like guns. And of course, this sets up the final scenes when (as we can expect) he finally is pushed to a point where he does put on guns (a similar situation to Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider).

In the meantime, the filmmakers and the audience have loads of fun, including a cat fight between an angry wife and the town floozy, Marlene Dietrich.

In Destry Rides Again, Jimmy Stewart is perfect – he is so Jimmy Stewart. His famous halting pattern of speech is used comedically to suggest a kind of slyness. It shows the awareness and intelligence behind his character’s meek exterior so we know this quality is part of the character’s act.

As an audience, we realize there is more to him than the meek exterior we see.

Dietrich is also good, though the name Frenchy doesn’t quite fit her German accent … but I suppose that’s quibbling.

Unlike some parodies that simply mock a style, films that choose to take a kind of “looking down the nose” approach, Destry Rides Again seems to love westerns and love using the style to have fun. And it works brilliantly. It’s a movie that succeeds as a western and as a comedy. Ultimately, it is simply a lot of fun to watch.

Highly recommended. (See also: Along Came Jones)

(Originally posted in 2003.)

On Amazon:

- Amazon.com (U.S.)
- Amazon.ca (Canada)

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Directed by Don Siegel

For me, The Shootist (1976) is a funny movie. Not funny “ha-ha” but funny in the oddball sense. I really enjoyed it. It’s a good, maybe even close to great movie. But at the same time, there are aspects of it that don’t quite work for me.

I think what I have problems with are Don Siegel’s direction. On the one hand, it’s perfect. He tells the film’s story exactly as he should. It’s the tale of a gunman, a “shootist” who, in his later years, finds out he has cancer and is dying. The movie focuses on his final days.

This makes it a very character driven film. And this is how Siegel directs it. Being a mid-seventies film (and being as Siegel is the man who gave us Dirty Harry), there is a good deal of reliance on the hand held, realistic looking “in-the-moment” kind of film work that was common with certain films back then.

But … The problem I think I have is that Wayne’s character, John Bernard Books (based loosely on John Wesley Hardin), is a character whose story, in the world of cinema, is dependent on previous Hollywood movies. In other words, in order for the character and his situation to resonate, we have to refer back to what Hollywood has established – part of the reason why Wayne is perfectly cast in this role.

But the movie isn’t really shot or put together like a Hollywood western. It has the look of something much more realistic, far less mythic.

And for me this didn’t quite work. I found it a bit off-putting. (Though I will say that, near the end of the film, Siegel uses a handheld, ground level shot to change perspectives that works brilliantly given that it’s the sort of change you’re not really supposed to make.)

But that’s not to say I didn’t like the film. The truth is, I loved it and I loved John Wayne in this role. He was made for it. And like many actors, the older he got the more effortless his performances became and here, in The Shootist, it comes across as utterly effortless.

On the whole, despite my qualms, this is a wonderful western and a great character piece where we get to see John Wayne, not to mention Lauren Bacall and Ron Howard and an array of other superb Hollywood stalwarts, give a tremendous, moving performance.

A gunfighter’s last days. A man who is dying and knows it. What does he do? How does he feel? How does it play out?

That’s The Shootist.

And in addition …

As a review of this film on filmcritic.com reminds me, there is an fascinating behind the scenes story to this film about an old gunfighter dying of cancer. John Wayne, who plays that old gunfighter, was himself dying of cancer at the time he made this film. This is recounted in the relatively short but very interesting documentary that is part of the DVD’s special features. (Actually, it’s essentially the only special feature on the disc.)

You can get The Shootist individually or, as I did, part of The John Wayne Centennial Collection, which contains eight of the Duke’s movies (and some pretty good ones at that).

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Directed by John Ford

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

A lot of people begin their comments about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with the quote above. While it may be applicable to the theme of the movie, I’m using it in relation to director John Ford, of whom I’m sure a number of biographies have been written – but who cares? The legend is better and if there is any truth in it, well that’s nice too.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is considered by many to be one of the great American westerns, and who could seriously argue that? Still, the same claim could reasonably be made for many of Ford’s movies, from Stagecoach to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon to The Searchers.

They’re all good and they’re all informed by what I would call Ford’s rugged, masculine romanticism. While he’s known as a kind of “tough guy” due to his legend and the films he made, to me the defining characteristic of his movies is romance. I don’t mean this in terms of love stories, but in terms of a stoic sentimentalism – and I don’t use that word in its negative sense. But it’s clear that Ford loved these kinds of stories, these kinds of landscapes and this kind of life.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, we get one of Ford’s best considered, best structured and most thoughtful, resonating western films.

Shinbone has a problem. A man named Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who has no regard for the law or anything other than his own interests and whims, is terrorizing the town with his uncontrolled violence. He represents a capricious, dangerous chaos.

Into the town on a stagecoach rides Ransom Stoddard, a young, naive lawyer (Jimmy Stewart). Even before arriving in the town he meets Liberty and encounters his lawless violence.

The young attorney is appalled and immediately determines Shinbone needs the rule of law to restore order – it doesn’t need guns and a perpetuation of the violence. There is one man in the town, however, who is willing to stand up to Liberty on Liberty’s terms – meaning guns – and that’s Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Tom doesn’t believe the law can help situations such as this. Right will prevail only in terms of the western code, man to man, gun to gun.

So while Ransom and Tom are united in the sense that both would like to see Liberty dealt with, they aren’t united as to how. Tom’s way is almost barbaric to Ransom and the young lawyer’s way is all but useless to Tom.

They also have a growing conflict in their relationship with the young woman who works in the town’s eatery, Hallie (Vera Miles). When the movie begins, she’s pretty much “Tom’s girl” and it seems only a matter of time before the two will marry. But Ransom’s arrival represents something Hallie hasn’t had before – opportunities, education and the kind of order that allows for families to flourish.

As the movie progresses, Hallie comes to represent the town’s growing desire for order and increasing detachment from the old western ways, embodied by Tom.

The story is told in flashback, beginning as it does with Ransom and Hallie arriving in Shinbone as husband and wife for Tom’s funeral. Ransom is a senator now and what this opening shows us is life after the old west has vanished and the new world is in place.

There’s a certain superficiality to Senator Stoddard, a false note to most of what he says, until he focuses on Tom and their shared story. When the movie is seen as a whole, the opening comes to suggest a certain loss of integrity due to the change that has come to the west. The ending, however, suggests that what has been gained is a degree of prosperity, even beauty.

It all adds up to an elegiac film. It was one of the first of many westerns from the sixties that addressed the dying out of the old western ways and the arrival of the modern world. (See movies like The Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time in the West and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.)

Ford is too good of a director to make it a simple black and white equation, though. If he mourns the passing of the old, he also celebrates the arrival of the new, though not without some equivocating. (While Stewart carries a kind of wide-eyed, innocent moral background through the film, his life as a senator appears to have somewhat compromised this with politics.)

The ending (spoiler)

The movie’s denouement, the shooting of Liberty Valance, is also equivocal – deliberately so. Everyone, including the audience, believes the lawyer has shot Liberty, that the law has won out. And it has won. But as we learn, Ransom didn’t kill Liberty.

It’s Tom, the old west, violence meeting violence. Against such an opponent, the law can’t win. The law requires that everyone buy into it. When someone such as Liberty refuses to, the recourse is to meet his violence on the same terms.

However, while it’s required to defeat Liberty, it can’t survive. The reason it can’t is because Hallie, the representative of the town, ultimately does not choose it (Tom). She chooses Ransom (the law). It’s the collective will that prevails, and it’s the collective will that informs and supports the law.

In the face of this, Liberty is just a passing trouble that is finally eliminated. Tom, who actually saves the town from Liberty, is also eliminated. He can’t ultimately win because he can’t provide what Ransom (the law) can: peace and stability. (Hence, the home he is trying to build burns to the ground – and by his own violence.)

While none of these thoughts occurred to me when I first saw The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (which must have been around the time I was twelve), and they don’t really register as I watch the film play out – it’s too engrossing dramatically for that – they do come to mind afterwards as I think about what I’ve seen and consider how it all adds up.

While I don’t know what movie I would call “the greatest western,” I would definitely be among those who place The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance among the best ever. And it’s no surprise it’s a John Ford film, the man who in many ways defined what westerns were and where they would go.

Westerns are morality plays and Ford did them better than anyone because, while his westerns always have a strong moral centre, they are never black and white. Sometimes they appear that way, but when you really look at them you see they aren’t that simple.

Random thoughts:

• If you have ever wondered why John Wayne impersonations always have him referring to people as “Pilgrim,” you need to watch this movie. This is the film it comes from, as in, “Whoa, take ‘er easy there, Pilgrim.”

• Lee Marvin’s naturalism, his evocation of a sadistic, violent criminal, is frighteningly good – similar to the nasty guy he plays in The Big Heat.

• And what about that Gene Pitney song, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valanace? Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, it was meant as the movie’s theme song but due to some snafu was never used. They actually used music from the 1938 film, Young Mr. Lincoln. And it’s all too bad. I always liked the song: “When Liberty Valance rode to town the women folk would hide, they’d hide …”

Other John Ford movies:

• The Searchers (1956)
• The Treasure of the Sierre Madre (1948)
• The Hurricane (1937)
• The Quiet Man (1952)

Four stars out of four.

(Originally posted 2004.)

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