10 Comments

One could argue that Jimmy Stewart’s character is the bravest of them all, even if he did not actually kill Valance. He stood up to him even though he knew he would probably die. The John Wayne character is not in the line of fire. Which is the better man is not an easy question to answer, since each of them shows strong character. Maybe both in their own way are.

Expand full comment

A very memorable movie. I see this movie as a parable about the "patriarchal" society -- a society that privileges motherhood (and family). Chesterton argued western civilization is grounded upon respect for femininity (presumably derived from centuries of devotion to the Virgin Mary). John Wayne and Lee Marvin represent the old "masculine" male-dominated west where guys just worked things out (a la the Mexican drug cartels today). Jimmy Stewart is the archetype for "law" used to civilize and to tame raw power in order to make the frontier safe for mothers and children. Vera Miles has to choose between the old masculine west and the new feminized "patriarchal" west where men submit to motherhood. She picks Jimmy Stewart and law/order (aka stability and protection) over the wild west. But at the end of the day, the Duke had to solve the problem. So maybe it suggests there is a veneer of law and order that ultimately can/will fail.

Expand full comment
founding
Sep 7Liked by Debra Esolen

One of my favorite movies of all time. Edmund O'Brien almost steals the show. So many great lines:"Look at that spectacle of justice (Jimmy Stewart) rising out of the gravy and the mashed potatoes!" and staring at his empty jug of liquor"What, no more courage?" Lol.

Expand full comment
Sep 7Liked by Debra Esolen

Gene Pitney’s theme song was great too and was a hit in 1962. I came across it after the fact when I was 10 years old and couldn’t get enough of it:

https://youtu.be/vDN4L7cAQf0?si=YB-V7cMl5hCA_ORG

The lyrics tell the story:

“When Liberty Valance rode to town

The women folk would hide, they'd hide

When Liberty Valance walked around

The men would step aside

'Cause the point of a gun was the only law

That Liberty understood

When it came to shootin' straight and fast

He was mighty good

From out of the East a stranger came

A law book in his hand, a man

The kind of a man the West would need

To tame a troubled land

'Cause the point of a gun was the only law

That Liberty understood

When it came to shootin' straight and fast

He was mighty good

Many a man would face his gun

And many a man would fall

The man who shot Liberty Valance

He shot Liberty Valance

He was the bravest of them all

The love of a girl can make a man

Stay on when he should go, stay on

Just tryin' to build a peaceful life

Where love is free to grow

But the point of a gun was the only law

That Liberty understood

When the final showdown came at last

A law book was no good

Alone and afraid she prayed

That he'd return that fateful night, aww that night

When nothing she said could keep her man

From goin' out to fight

From the moment a girl gets to be full-grown

The very first thing she learns

When two men go out to face each other

Only one returns

Every one heard two shots ring out

One shot made Liberty fall

The man who shot Liberty Valance

He shot Liberty Valance

He was the bravest of them all

The man who shot Liberty Valance

He shot Liberty Valance

He was the bravest of them all

Expand full comment

Last Monday we were treated to an essay on "pilgrim" as Word of the Week, and how John Wayne's character uses it in Liberty Valence as a "habit of speech," allegorically referring to the pilgrimage of Jimmy Stewart's character, who brings from the east, civilization and law to the west. That "habit of speech" appears again within a violent context in Mclintock, a western with a mad-cap plot tenuously tied to Taming of the Shrew. Before John Wayne's character delivers a solid sock to the jaw of the bad guy, played by Leo Gordon, knocking him into a backside pilgrimage down a mudslide, he snarls, "...but pilgrim, you caused a lot of hurt this morning, coulda got somebody killed..."

Expand full comment