The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Director Wade Stotts joins me to talk about his favorite westerns and how they have impacted his life and the lives of those around him. We also talk about how Westerns are a big part of his family and why he loves them so much.
00:02:18.500Now that everyone knows the Constitution is dead, you can talk about the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which will be quite relevant, actually, to the topic of this movie.
00:02:28.100But I had the pleasure of meeting Wade over at the NatCon 4 in Washington, D.C., that conference.
00:02:36.800If you're not checking out his work, of course, you should absolutely be doing so.
00:02:41.660Wade, we're going to get into the movie specifically.
00:02:45.420But for me, Westerns are part of my family history.
00:02:49.120My maternal grandfather was a huge Western fan, one of those guys who just fell asleep, you know, in the easy chair every afternoon watching Westerns, just, you know, shelves of Louis L'Amour books.
00:03:01.520My father watches tons of Westerns, is also a Western aficionado when it comes to history.
00:03:07.900He can recite every fact you've ever forgotten about the Wild West.
00:03:12.700Where does your love of Westerns come from?
00:03:14.600Yeah, I didn't really grow up watching Westerns, with one possible exception.
00:03:20.960My great aunt, whenever I'd go stay with her, she had just a handful of VHSs, and one of them was Three Amigos.
00:03:28.260And I guess you could count that as, you know, it's sort of a take on Magnificent Seven anyway.
00:03:33.040But what got me into Westerns as an adult was when I had my first son.
00:03:37.420I decided that I was, you know, wanted to figure out what I was going to show him, what kind of movies and shows.
00:03:42.180And I knew that, you know, I grew up on, like, Spongebob and whatever was on, you know, going on in TV at that point.
00:03:49.540But I just wanted to give them at least, you know, a little bit more of the, like, old movies that I knew my parents grew up on.
00:03:58.300So, yeah, my wife and I, for holidays, we would just trade back and forth DVDs.
00:04:03.520So we would buy each other for Christmas.
00:04:05.220She would buy me three, and I'd buy her three.
00:04:07.180And we'd just, those would be, you know, at least some of the gifts that we'd give each other and then watch them and get excited about showing to our kids.
00:04:37.140Well, we're going to go ahead and dive into the man who shot Liberty Valance.
00:04:41.180But before we do, let's hear from today's sponsor.
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00:06:28.720You have Lee Marvin as the villain doing a great job there.
00:06:33.720I have always been somebody who came down more in the John Wayne camp.
00:06:39.000There's kind of a division between, do you like your gritty Westerns, your Clint Eastwood, your spaghetti Western type, or are you more of a John Wayne guy?
00:06:47.480Which, sometimes he can do more serious ones, like True Grit is a little more serious, but he also does a lot more of the hokier ones.
00:06:54.720What do you tend to prefer in your Westerns?
00:06:57.580I'm totally on your side on this debate.
00:06:59.880I think that the gritty Westerns, for as much value as they have, and I've enjoyed those as well, I think John Wayne, at a certain level, knew how to pick projects based on...
00:07:11.960I think there was a lot more humanity in his projects, I think, and it showed the sort of...
00:07:18.200Yeah, you can call it sentimental or a sentimentalist view of the West, though this movie in particular is not a sentimentalist kind of movie.
00:07:24.840But, yeah, I totally prefer the John Wayne ones, the hero riding in, and all the flaws are there, and you see the flaws, and you see everything else.
00:07:34.060But, yeah, the pre-deconstructed Westerns are my favorite still.
00:07:38.920We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
00:08:08.680Yeah, just heading in here, obviously, we will be spoiling a movie that's well over, like, 50 years old at this point.
00:08:16.860So, you know, run for the hills, I guess, if you're unfamiliar.
00:08:20.040But this is your one and only chance to bail out.
00:08:24.000So, there's a couple themes that work their way through pretty much all Westerns.
00:08:30.340Many people have compared the comic book genre to the Western in that it's just kind of the mode in which all movies were being made at the time.
00:08:41.580There is a little bit of truth to that, but I think it's a little overwrought, particularly because I think Westerns dealt with things a lot better.
00:08:48.800You know, they really had much better ability to go ahead and search out certain parts of human nature.
00:08:57.220But one thing that certainly resonates throughout a lot of Westerns is the approach of civilization.
00:09:03.480You know, what it is to tame a frontier, what it is to conquer that, and then the approach of law and order, the approach of the government, the different things that are going to go ahead and make the West and tame it into kind of a more modern city, something that's closer to our normal society.
00:09:24.360That's certainly something that's at the heart of the man who shot Liberty Valance.
00:09:30.040Can you explain a little bit about the dynamic between Jimmy Stewart's character and John Wayne's character?
00:10:28.360He's got bags full of law books that he's coming in on a stagecoach with.
00:10:32.260And then we see John Wayne, on the other hand, who has lived here for a long time.
00:10:37.080And was at some level a huge part of keeping this town safe.
00:10:41.120So Tom Donovan, he doesn't have any kind of official title there.
00:10:47.020The guy who, Andy Devine is the sheriff.
00:10:49.740And if you know him from any of his other movies, he's always the comic relief, the kind of bumbling character.
00:10:54.740And so we've got Tom Donovan, this guy who is violent and a little scary, but also is relaxed and easy to be around.
00:11:06.180And over against that is the sort of high ideals guy, the guy who thinks of government in terms of pieces of paper, books.
00:11:14.840Um, I, uh, there's a, there's a great scene in one where he's, uh, where, uh, Ransom is washing dishes and reading a book.
00:11:23.000And he, uh, Liberty Valance is the, the, uh, the violent sort of, uh, villain character in this movie.
00:11:31.020And he's, he's looking at, uh, he's washing dishes, reading a book, Ransom is, and he sees a spot and he has somebody read it.
00:11:37.520And he says, look, I've got, I've got Liberty Valance right where I want him.
00:11:41.040So he's looking at this book and he, he thinks, okay, now this, this is where I've got him.
00:11:45.700Um, and then what, uh, John Wayne, on the other hand, in his conversations about Liberty Valance, uh, says that if you're going to stand up to Liberty Valance, you're going to need a gun.
00:11:55.060And you're going to have to learn how to use one of these.
00:11:57.160Um, and one of the earliest scenes, one of the first scenes we see with, between, uh, Tom and Ransom is this great moment where, um, he says, so Tom tells Ransom, you're going to need a gun.
00:12:09.900And then Ransom says, um, he said, what does he say?
00:12:14.120He says, um, you're just, you're telling me exactly what Liberty Valance told me.
00:12:18.040You're telling me what the bad guy told me.
00:12:19.480Um, and so at the beginning, at least, um, Ransom can't tell the difference between Tom and this, uh, villain, this obvious villain.
00:12:30.340Um, and so that's the, that's at least the beginning dynamic is this, uh, this lawyer out of law school.
00:12:37.100And then this guy who has been a part of settling this town and their, their conflict, uh, and eventually, uh, erupts in a bunch of interesting ways, which we'll get to.
00:12:46.920Absolutely. So as you said, he comes into town on this stagecoach and, uh, they're going to the town of Shinbone.
00:12:55.340Shinbone is currently a territory, uh, but, uh, uh, Vance or, uh, sorry, Valance, uh, really represents the interests of the ranchers.
00:13:07.820The ranchers want to keep this area, uh, open range so that they can have free feed for their, uh, you know, for the cattle, this kind of thing.
00:13:15.780And he is there to enforce their will. He's got a small gang that he rides with, uh, and, uh, on top of his criminal mischief, he also is kind of represents this idea of keeping the area wild, right?
00:13:28.800He doesn't want, uh, statehood. He doesn't want law and order to come in and enforce the fences and protect, uh, the land and the ownership of these different properties.
00:13:39.220He wants things to stay the same. So he and, uh, and Tom Donovan, uh, are the, have a similar understanding of kind of where they are best, right?
00:13:50.060This is, this is their, whether, even though one is good and one is evil, they both operate best in this kind of wild scenario.
00:13:57.820But Ransom comes in and the first thing that happens to him, the way that he's introduced, like he said, before the, we get the flashback at the beginning where he's a senator.
00:14:04.760So we already kind of know, you know, Tom's going to die. Uh, Ransom's going to end up with the girl. We already know all these things.
00:14:10.780There's no tension in that. Uh, the, the, uh, the, uh, woman that, uh, Tom and Ransom are going to be fighting over is, uh, Haley, uh, I believe is the character's name.
00:14:21.360Yeah. Hallie. Yeah. Vera miles. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, we already know how that's going to play out, but when he comes into town, he's jumped by his stage coaches is pulled over by Liberty Valance and his gang.
00:14:38.060And, uh, I always forget, you know, that he keeps throwing dude in there. It's like, Hey dude, stand and deliver dude. Uh, forgetting that that's an insult, you know, as opposed to like something.
00:14:47.520And so, uh, you know, they, uh, they go ahead and pull over the stage coach and we see right away that Liberty Valance is a man of high, or rather, sorry, uh, uh, Ransom is a man of high ideals because he tells Liberty Valance, Hey, you can't steal this stuff.
00:15:06.300You know, there's a, like a brooch or something that the woman in the stagecoach with them, it's, it came from her husband or her dead husband or something like that.
00:15:14.660And she doesn't want to give it up. And so Ransom attempts to defend her and gets beaten with an inch of his life. And that's how he's brought into town is, you know, he's, he is really destroyed by this idea that violence would be an option.
00:15:30.300And he's willing to put himself between this woman and, uh, the highwayman, but he just completely is unable to stop them. And this is really the position he finds himself in immediately because he's immediately required to go ahead and come into town.
00:15:44.800And he's not just, uh, recuperating there. He needs, he needs Tom Donovan, uh, Donovan's kind of protection in this moment. And he also ends up washing dishes and waiting tables. So he's immediately put in kind of this effeminate role. So, so he's already playing, uh, kind of the weak man in this society.
00:16:02.040Right. And there's, there's a moment, um, with the scene, uh, at the stagecoach, I listened to a commentary where, um, Lee Marvin was talking about the, the scene and how it was playing out.
00:16:14.000And, uh, Jimmy Stewart, at every time he got to the point where he was supposed to yell at Liberty Valance, every time he was supposed to talk him down, he couldn't get the words out. Um, and he just, for some reason would flub it every time, or just didn't have the confidence in him.
00:16:28.320And John Ford, the director cut everybody, walked straight up to Jimmy Stewart and said, you are not a coward.
00:16:35.640And so even at the beginning, you, exactly what you said, he's willing to put himself in the middle of this, but he doesn't realize at a basic level what it's going to take.
00:16:44.000It's going to take to win this interaction. He thinks he can quote sort of out of his law books, the way that he learned in law school.
00:16:51.360And, uh, we see this dynamic, like I said, play out then in the dining scene where, uh, Liberty Valance walks in. Uh, he recognizes that you have a ransom there waiting tables.
00:17:05.240He goes ahead and trips ransom. Uh, ransom knows something needs to be done. He knows he's losing face, but he doesn't know
00:17:13.040how to actually interact with this. Tom Donovan comes in and demands, uh, in a pretty, in a pretty great scene, uh, that he pick up the stake and, uh, Liberty Valance tries to get one of his, his henchmen to pick it up and say, no, you Valance, you do it.
00:17:27.920He's obviously bringing things to a head and this just terrifies that. Well, it shouldn't say terrifies.
00:17:33.280It horrifies ransom because he's like, you guys are going to murder each other over this stake. Like, I can't believe that you guys were willing to go into a gunfight over this stake. He still doesn't understand that there's there at no point is fair play or logic in the way that he understands it going to enter into the decisions that are being made in this moment.
00:17:53.060Oh yeah. Yeah. And, and that, that scene, like you said, is, is a really great one, just even from like a filmmaking perspective. So if you're a, if you're a movie nerd, being able to follow the, all the blocking in there, it's just brilliant, but you, it's, it's one of those scenes that you could watch on mute and totally understand every piece of the character dynamics.
00:18:11.060Because who's standing where and where in the frame they are, there, there really aren't that many shots in that one, but it's like a little, a little play where you're able to, again, see every little character dynamic. And that's what, that's, what's so great about, I heard this in a review. I read this in a review of, of this movie at the time. Somebody said that the Western is the most political of the genres because it takes abstract political concepts and put them, puts them in concrete actions.
00:18:38.040Uh, and that's, that's the strength of movies is the, uh, a lot of the times in, in movies, they try to be like plays in the sense that they will put a lot of the ideas right up front in people's dialogue. Um, but this, at this, in this movie, it shows how concrete those things are, how, how all the ideas don't have to be, um, just in the schoolroom scene. So a lot of times the schoolroom scene ideas or the high ideas that, uh, Ransom says are in dialogue.
00:19:05.220Like, but in reality, if you're watching the whole movie on mute, you know, exactly what's going on and what the real political realities are in, uh, Shinbone at this time.
00:19:15.180Well, I think the worst crime in the entire movie, uh, is probably the fact that every one of these guys in the diner, uh, wants their steak burned.
00:19:30.060every one of them has the same, the same terrible order.
00:19:34.180You know, just, you can understand why everyone is so angry all the time, but there's, and, and, and within, within that same scene, do you have something you're going to do?
00:19:43.080Uh, within that same scene, um, that's, that's the scene where he's reading out of the law book and says, I've got Liberty Valance right where I want him.
00:19:49.860So this is before Valance walks in and he hands the book over to Hallie, uh, who then, who then says she can't read.
00:19:57.080And, and she says, Oh, do you think you could teach me?
00:20:01.300And then, um, and then some, after they've had the conversation about whether they can read or, Oh, can I teach you how to read?
00:20:08.240Um, Tom walks in, uh, John Wayne's character walks in and he sees up on the wall, a sign that says ransom stoddard attorney at law.
00:20:16.360He reads it out loud and he turns to, he turns to ransom and starts having a conversation about like, if you put that up, you're just going to get a shot down by Liberty Valance, but it, the movie doesn't jump up and down on it.
00:20:26.760But at that moment, you've got one guy who can read and thinks that's exactly what everybody needs here in this town is I'll, I'll start a school.
00:20:33.840And then you've got another guy who can read, who walks in, you see immediately that he reads, nobody, nobody goes, Oh, Tom, you can read.
00:20:58.940Uh, this is a guy who has earned the respect of his community through his, uh, heroism, through his courage, through his man, being a man of action, but he is not completely without letters as well.
00:21:11.240He may not be as advanced at ransom in these, uh, different areas, but they are operating on a level that is more equal in a playing field that is more equal, uh, than many other movies would necessarily portray that, that, uh, stark difference.
00:21:25.020And I definitely want to get into the classroom.
00:21:27.540Cause like you said, this is, this is also where we understand, we kind of know from the beginning that Haley is, uh, is John Wayne's girl.
00:21:35.880Like everybody knows eventually John Wayne's going to make his move.
00:21:39.560You know, he's, he's always, uh, he's brings her a cactus bloom, which is something that at the beginning of the movie, she wants to go see the cactus blooms.
00:21:47.020And that's how they end up at his house when she's remembering, uh, about him.
00:21:51.880Uh, and so she's obviously kind of, uh, something that he's got his eye on.
00:21:57.120Everybody knows eventually that they're going to end up together, but the beginning of this learning, you know, the beginning of learning to read is also the beginning of, uh, Jimmy Stewart being involved in basically this love triangle of possibly being someone who could win away.
00:22:11.920What was supposed to be inevitably the prize of the man who was taming the West.
00:23:04.920All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and get to the, uh, like I said, the, the school room scene.
00:23:10.480Cause I think that's the next important thing to talk about.
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00:24:39.440So the schoolhouse is a big deal in this movie because, like I said, a lot of this is about the advance of civilization.
00:24:47.180We have these different hints that the time of John Wayne is probably coming to an end and the time of Ransom is approaching.
00:24:57.420But Ransom is unable to do what he needs to do.
00:25:00.420He's not able to really protect himself, maintain himself.
00:25:04.320Civilization has not arrived substantially enough for a man like Ransom to flourish.
00:25:10.680And so it's still John Wayne who is watching over him.
00:25:14.400And this is one of the things that we see at the end of the the diner scene or the restaurant scene is Ransom gets very angry over the fact that John Wayne had to stand up for him.
00:26:59.400And Tom is really the only thing standing between him and that that violence, that wild violence that the West represents.
00:27:07.760That's always something that's a huge tension for him.
00:27:10.360Yeah. And the point about community is a big one, because in this movie in particular, it's the focus is so small on these handful of characters,
00:27:20.080because that's where at least the action of the movie is.
00:27:22.860But you once in a while get little shots of the town and how they function.
00:27:28.140And the way and these this is a community that's been established, built and has places that they go that has people who show up to the restaurant and say,
00:27:36.340oh, it's going to be the usual. And that's what everybody there is trying to preserve at some level.
00:27:42.020But there's there's still at some level a desire for whatever's next.
00:27:46.640Everybody knows that they're on a decision point between.
00:27:50.440Yes. Is this going to be a state? Is this going to be a territory?
00:27:53.200And, yeah, Valance does represent that.
00:27:56.980What's what's fascinating to me, though, with with this movie in particular, we talked about John Ford being the guy who did the searchers.
00:28:03.320He did. She wore a yellow ribbon, the quiet man, some some big movies with big set pieces.
00:28:08.440This is a movie that was only shot on a lot.
00:28:10.720And I think one location, I think John Wayne's house was out at a ranch on location, but you don't get Monument Valley in this movie.
00:28:19.640You don't get those kind of iconic shots from a stagecoach, the same kind of thing.
00:28:24.520But what you do get is this character element that's in all of these other John Wayne Westerns and all these other John Ford Westerns put right up to the front.
00:28:33.540And so a lot of folks don't realize because this is in black and white that this came out before the searchers or came out after the searchers.
00:28:40.120People think it was after was before because it's black and white, but the black and white choice was on purpose as as was the decision to shoot in a small space.
00:28:49.980And it's because John Ford saw that this was a character story and he just put it right up front and really shows off again that John John Ford is not this sort of pure spectacle director,
00:29:01.440but can focus in and understand the human dynamics of a small group of people where where, again, those decisions about where the country is going or where this territory is going are being made.
00:29:13.920So Ransom Starter, Jimmy Stewart's character, decides to go ahead and start this schoolhouse, which is attached to the the restaurant.
00:29:24.240And he's there going through the ABCs.
00:29:27.920He's got many people, not just Hallie or Haley or however we're supposed to say it.
00:29:32.800Yeah. But whatever consensus we come to, but he's also got most notably all of the minority or immigrant members in the schoolhouse.
00:29:45.640Right. It's mostly the the two the Swedish couple.
00:29:50.540Yeah. Restaurant odors. And then you have Pompey, which is kind of John Stewart's manservant, though.
00:29:57.460They do have that moment later on where he comes in to drink in the bar and the guy tries to tell him, you're a black guy.
00:30:04.900You can't come in the bar. And John Wayne gets very angry and says he drinks here if he wants to.
00:30:09.000And then the immigrant children that are there.
00:30:14.080And so there's all these different groups from kind of the outside of the community that are there and they're learning, again, to read and write.
00:30:22.600But also, very importantly, he goes ahead and includes civics in the organization, in the lesson plan,
00:30:30.300because obviously we're also working in the theme of what the United States is and what civilization looks like.
00:30:37.240And, you know, so it's the Constitution says that all men are equal and the government does what we say it does.
00:30:45.600It's very much our civics education is about the same, I guess, is the answer we're looking for here.
00:30:51.540Yeah. Well, and you said a small correction.
00:30:54.760You said it was connected to the restaurant.
00:30:56.360The schoolhouse is connected to the law office, which is which is also the newspaper office.
00:31:02.420The newspaper office. I should have been to the newspaper guy by now.
00:31:04.400Yeah. Newspaper. Yeah. We'll definitely delve into his character because he's a fascinating piece as well.
00:31:13.080And at one point, yeah, there there's I will talk about his his sort of one of his final scenes later.
00:31:20.140But the the the like lawyer and the journalist are in this room and then off to the side is the schoolhouse and the and he takes the newspaper in and says this is this is one of the best teaching aides around an honest newspaper.
00:31:34.560And so he goes in and this article that was written in the room next door is about how we have to fight for statehood now.
00:31:42.140It's going to be in all these ranchers who want it to remain a territory.
00:31:45.760They're going to destroy our you know, they're going to destroy any hope we have to maintain this this town.
00:31:53.380And this may be rushing the school scene.
00:31:55.920But when when John Wayne comes in, he comes in the middle of the scene and he tells Pompey to get back to working on the on the room he's building onto his house.
00:32:05.020And he basically basically breaks up the classroom saying Liberty Valance.
00:32:12.940We know what we know that he's headed here as well.
00:32:17.540And what he says to the to the newspaper man, he says he says, you've written some pretty words and you like and you ransom, you read them well.
00:32:25.660But if you print that this town gets burned down.
00:32:30.960And so, again, we have this the idealist.
00:32:33.460We have the the idealists, I guess, in this case, versus a guy who says, don't print that.
00:32:41.020He says not only can you read it, he also understands it and agrees with the arguments because he's one that's advocating for statehood later in the movie.
00:32:49.820But he does tell them, yeah, don't do that right now.
00:32:53.780There's still a big, scary monster that needs to be killed first.
00:32:57.920And it's really important that he like you said, he has he's sympathetic to their arguments.
00:33:04.020But because he's the one who has to do the violence, because he's the one who will actually pay the price.
00:33:10.860He also understands the realities of how or how you could not implement that in a way that these guys who are constantly talking about their lofty ideals have no no ability to do.
00:33:22.620And that, again, that's another big part of a big, big, big theme of this is, yes, ransom might represent something critical, some critical step in civilization.
00:35:26.380We want women and children to be able to walk in the streets.
00:35:28.860And then by the end of that scene, after the school, after the school house is empty early and it's just Hallie and Ransom.
00:35:39.340Ransom walks over and erases that on the board, off the board and looks down and says to says to Hallie that that Tom is right in this whole situation.
00:35:51.820And he recognizes that and that leads pushes pretty heavily into that next scene.
00:35:56.240So is it the is it him training with the gun is the next scene?
00:36:32.140And so he's trying to just explain to Ransom how woefully equipped he is for this battle.
00:36:40.320Like learning how to pull a trigger is not sufficient.
00:36:43.560So they go through some of the mechanisms of shooting the gun.
00:36:47.180And this is also where he goes ahead and reasserts his ownership over Hallie.
00:36:52.360He says, this is, you know, this is my girl.
00:36:54.220Want to make it clear to you because, you know, she seemed really worried about you when she found out that you might be with a gun and might might be in danger.
00:37:02.440And so I just want to make it clear that, you know, you need to give me a wide berth here.
00:37:09.780And he also has him set up the, you know, the paint cans to go ahead and do some target practice.
00:37:15.600But he starts shooting the paint cans as Ransom sets them up and just douses him in paint just to make it very clear that, hey, you're not ready for this.
00:37:24.060But like you said, Ransom shows some steel and immediately turns around and knocks John Wayne on his butt, you know, with a punch.
00:37:30.840Right. And John Wayne seems to give him a begrudging respect for that.
00:37:36.440You know, he yes, this guy is not a warrior, but he has a fighting spirit.
00:37:41.460He has honor. He is not willing to just take that insult.
00:37:45.060Right. And when he does try to fight back, he does so admirably.
00:37:50.220Yeah. And how he shows, hey, Hallie's my girl, how he does that is he points to the room he's building on.
00:37:56.340Right. He's building on a room to his house next to so that she can.
00:38:00.960And that's that's something that he's been saying for a long time, building a room on my house so that when we get married, she's going to have a place building a porch and it's going to be her little spot.
00:38:09.740And then in that shooting scene where he shoots the paint cans off, he says, I don't like tricks either.
00:38:14.700So John Wayne says, I don't like tricks either. But tricks are what you're going to get with Liberty Valance.
00:38:19.620You're not going to get a guy who plays fair.
00:38:21.080You're not going to get a guy who walks his paces and draws.
00:38:24.080It's it's going to be ugly and it's going to be tricky.
00:38:27.220And why that punch is significant is that John Wayne wasn't expecting it.
00:38:33.120So after after after after Ransom gets tricked, he punches back and within and then push.
00:38:44.100But it does push into the next scene and why why those character dynamics work the way they do after that.
00:38:49.920So this is the midpoint. If you're a screenwriting guru, this is the midpoint is the punch.
00:38:54.640So that's significant. That's a big turn in what's going to happen.
00:38:58.540And the rest of the movie makes a little bit more sense.
00:39:01.920The relationship between those two characters make a little bit more sense after after Jimmy Stewart socks John Wayne and John Wayne kind of smiles a little bit about it.
00:39:09.340So the next scene we have, I believe, is the election right there.
00:39:14.360They shut down Jimmy Stewart's character says we have to shut down the bar, which makes everybody very angry that they're not allowed to drink during the election.
00:39:23.020But we see everyone coming in. The the the Swedish immigrant gentleman is very excited about the fact that he has his citizenship papers and the wife is crying because she's so proud that he's going to go participate in the election.
00:39:36.580And this is also where we see the journalist really become an important character.
00:39:42.340He is. I love it because it's the perfect portrayal of a journalist.
00:39:46.420He's constantly talking about the importance of news, but he never wants to be involved in anything.
00:39:51.640He's constantly drunk and does a lot of monologuing to his whiskey jug all the time in there.
00:39:59.780And so they come in. Ransom has to run the meeting because he's the lawyer.
00:40:05.680He's the only one who knows, I guess, Robert's rules of order or whatever.
00:40:08.820Yeah. Well, yeah. But Tom is the one who hands it over.
00:40:12.840Right. So Tom calls it to order and he says, I know I ransom started to come up here and lead this thing to share this thing.
00:40:19.520Right. And the first thing that does is say, hey, I nominate Tom to be one.
00:40:24.120They need two delegates. Right. And they nominate Tom to be one of these delegates.
00:40:27.960He's obviously the guy everybody respects. He's obviously the leader of the community.
00:40:31.380This should be who goes out there. But Tom immediately declines it because he says, I know I've got personal business.
00:40:37.940And by that, he very clearly means I'm going to go get married.
00:40:40.520Like I'm I am planning a life with this woman who I've been trying to woo this whole time.
00:40:46.460I'm finally going to pull the trigger. Everyone's been asking me, when is this going to happen?
00:40:49.820You know, the newspaper man when he was flirting with her is like, when can I print the wedding announcement?
00:40:54.360You know, when you know, and so he's he's saying, I can't go to this delegation.
00:40:58.440I can't this can't be my life. I have to go ahead and finally make good on this woman that I've been, you know, courting.
00:41:05.160But I'm finally going to go ahead and ask her to marry me.
00:41:29.740And later on, we do see that happen, but it's only after a significant event happens.
00:41:34.020It happens to be the title of the movie.
00:41:35.460So so so the gang members come in with him and, you know, it's pointed out many times that he is not so he's not from south of the picket line, which I guess is a delineation of people who could vote inside the territory.
00:41:50.520So he should not be able to make any he should not be a delegate, much less be able to vote, much less become a delegate.
00:41:56.940But he has his own goons kind of put him up for this.
00:42:02.240And then the last person they want, you know, someone else that's not him.
00:42:07.100And so they go ahead and put the newspaper guy in the newspaper guy is just absolutely flabbergasted.
00:42:12.500He hates it. You know, no, of course, I don't want to be involved in this.
00:42:36.380And in the first act where the whole town really revolts against Liberty Valance, you know, even though he threatens them directly, he says, don't any of you?
00:42:46.840You're all strong now. You're all brave now voting.
00:43:19.280But this is also where we get him calling out Liberty Valance because one of the things that happened was the or sorry, he calls out a ransom because one of the things that happened also is that the newspaper guy has his paper where a family was killed by the Valance gang.
00:43:35.340And so he recognizes that these guys are a threat to him and he goes ahead and makes his makes his call out to Jimmy Stewart's character as well.
00:43:44.180Right. Yeah. And and that that whole scene is is just this you see this kind of like gentleman off a little bit with with the two guys.
00:43:53.600So like this whole movie, I mean, we kind of hinted at it, but the whole movie could be seen as this like baton passing between these two guys.
00:44:02.200So like this this this John Wayne character and the Jimmy Stewart character.
00:44:07.780But this is a real a real time again after this direct confrontation.
00:44:11.960And both of them have kind of shown, OK, well, we're turning to different people.
00:44:16.820But yeah, by the end of this, Jimmy Stewart has asserted himself as the guy who in some ways and in a legal way has defeated Liberty Valance.
00:44:27.620Right. And so in the next scene, you get this you get again, the monologuing journalist with the with the whiskey jug excited about this new headline that he just wrote.
00:44:37.260Liberty Valance defeated. That's the big oh, man, like that feels so good to write that down.
00:44:42.080And and technically and in a certain sense, it's true. But but that's that's not how it ends up being, at least just because this newspaper came out and just because he lost the vote doesn't mean he's gone and gone as a threat.
00:44:56.800But yeah, so and by the end of that scene, you've got, yeah, Liberty calls out Ransom and says, I'll meet you in the middle of town and be alone.
00:45:05.940I'll see you there. And yeah, so that's that again, pushes pushes into the next scene.
00:45:11.960This I've said this before, but the script is so tight in this movie that there's no there's no extra shot.
00:45:17.920There's no extra scene. Even the stuff that seems superfluous at the time, you realize, oh, that really mattered later.
00:45:24.020And so why I'm always talking about, oh, and this just like catapults us into the next thing.
00:45:29.860It is amazing how much thrust this movie has for a small scale drama that doesn't have, you know, a guy pulling out a gun every five minutes.
00:45:49.080The special effects budget. This is this is this movie.
00:45:52.520The only thing it ever won an Oscar for just random factoid was costuming.
00:45:57.160And so I think it got nominated for a couple of other things, but it's it was the year that Lawrence of Arabia won.
00:46:04.680So David Lean got it that year. But man, oh, man, this is yeah, this is a great one.
00:46:09.320I've I've interrupted you again. No, no, it's fine. That's why you're here.
00:46:12.560So the so the newspaper man during this, we should say, is beaten basically to death.
00:46:19.360They think that they have when they see that headline, Liberty Valance and the guys.
00:46:24.060And again, it should have been kind of obvious. There should have been some kind of security detail.
00:46:28.040Yeah. Somebody like this is a very convenient moment where nobody in town notices the three most dangerous guys heading to the most obvious target available.
00:46:37.080But they go into the newspaper office where the man is monologuing with his with his whiskey bottle.
00:46:45.340They see the headline. They go ahead and beat him.
00:46:48.920And the only reason he survives is that the henchmen think he's dead and say, hey, he's dead.
00:46:54.400You don't need to keep hitting him. They break all of the windows.
00:46:58.380I think they light a fire at some point. They break the printing press.
00:47:02.040They break the press. Yeah. And so you're right.
00:47:05.200It's interesting, you know, in some ways, Liberty Valance has been defeated by the forces of civilization.
00:47:13.940Yeah. Yes. He has lost stature in the eyes of the community.
00:47:16.980There's a little bit of sheen off the apple when it comes to Valance and, you know, his mystique, his air of invincibility, because they were able to stand up to him in some capacity.
00:47:27.760But there's still no escaping the confrontation. There's still no escaping the physical showdown between these forces.
00:47:35.880So he goes ahead and calls out Jimmy Stewart, who is very shaken from seeing everything that has transpired.
00:47:44.340Gets the gun. He's still wearing his apron from dish washing.
00:47:49.000Can I can I pause you for just a moment?
00:47:50.540The as so as he's laying down the newspaper man, he's laying down on this little cot in his office.
00:47:56.920And Jimmy Stewart sees him laying down in this cot, beaten again within an inch of his life.
00:48:03.400And the newspaper man sits up and he says, I sure told that Liberty Valance about the freedom of the press.
00:51:06.240And Tom Donovan walks in on all this seemingly again at the moment, you know, hinting at the twist here.
00:51:15.040But he comes in to learn what has happened or talk about what has happened, sees them in this embrace and recognizes.
00:51:24.280Oh, I've lost her like once, you know, once she has sees him as the man who has protected the city, once she sees him as a man who has stood up for himself, that completes all of the things that maybe he was lacking previously.
00:51:38.900All of the things that Tom represented that she wanted in a man.
00:51:43.360And now ransom has become the complete package.
00:51:46.280And he recognizes that he is no longer kind of in this competition and heads out immediately to the saloon.
00:51:54.280Right. And that's the the exact moment at which she is clearly his now is the same moment that the town is clearly his.
00:52:03.360This thing that John Wayne has been there longer at and has been a part of protecting and founding is now now belongs to somebody else.
00:52:11.660And the woman that he loved and wanted to start a family with now belongs to somebody else.
00:52:17.420Yeah, it's just it's this heartbreaking moment where at that point, yeah, the story makes sense at some level.
00:52:26.800But while Jimmy Stewart has gone from this naive lawyer guy to tough guy who punches John Wayne and then afterward becomes the leader of this meeting, confronts Liberty Valance, shoots him dead.
00:52:40.420And then, of course, he gets the girl.
00:52:42.800Right. That's that's how the story goes.