Binging on John Ford, Part Two

Lee Van Cleef, Lee Marvin, James Stewart,
and John Wayne
in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

Continuing a John Ford binge. Ford uses visuals to tell his stories brilliantly, his characters are true to themselves and there is a certain majesty in that. But his America was mixed up with myth. The most telling line in all of his films comes at the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. When the newspaper publisher finds out the titular shooting was done not by esteemed senator Jimmy Stewart, but unknown John Wayne, he says "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

I avoided The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence for the longest time. I had ordered the DVD from Netflix months ago and never got around to watching it. It sat on my DVD player gathering dust until I got so bored with the second season of Community before they got to Inspector Space Time, I finally succumbed and watched.

I think the film's reputation as a jingoist love letter to John Wayne's America stopped me, but after viewing other Wayne vehicles such as The Searchers and Rio Bravo, I realized the film might have hidden treasures. The story follows a traditional Ford dynamic between two different kinds of heroes. Jimmy Stewart is Rance Stoddard, an idealistic, educated lawyer out to tame the West while Wayne's Tom Doniphon believes in solving his problems with a six-shooter and keeping a tight lid on his emotions. The titular character is the ironically named Liberty, a murdering scoundrel and a bully, followed around by scummy Lee Van Cleef and Strother Martin. In a climactic gunfight, Stewart appears to have shot Valence, but it was actually a hidden Wayne who did the deed. Stewart rides this justifiable act to become an important political figure, while Wayne dies in obscurity.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is regarded by many as one of Ford's best Westerns. It's also seen as an ode to a vanished way of life and a tribute to the silent cowboy type exemplified by the character played by Wayne. But Tom Doniphon, Wayne's powerful, white loner who saves the day is ironically supported by Pompey (played by Woody Strode), an African-American and presumably a former slave, always there to back up his boss with a loaded shot gun. (Also of note in 3 Godfathers, there is another example of this marginalization of minorities. The dying Mildred Natwick names her new baby after a trio of robbers on the run, played by Wayne, Carey and Pedro Armendariz in that order, even though the Mexican Armendariz is the one who did all the work helping her give birth. Thus, the white Wayne and Carey who did little with the actual childbirth get top billing and Armendariz is the last to be given credit. Additionally Wayne chastises Armendariz for speaking Spanish around the baby. "Next thing you know, he'll be speaking it himself," Wayne warns. God forbid!)

Ironies pile on top of each other in Valence as Stewart's Stoddard attempts to bring democracy and civilization to Shinbone with a reading and civics class. No one bothers to explain the contradictions and inequalities inherent in the American system when it comes to voting rights. Stoddard does not bother to point out to his students that many of them--the women including Vera Miles and Jeanette Nolan, the African-American Pompey, the daughter of sheriff Andy Devine and his Mexican wife--are not represented by their government and have no right to vote.

I remember during a recent presidential election, a TV reporter asked an old white guy who he wanted for president. "John Wayne" the gentleman replied. When the reporter informed his subject that his choice was dead, the guy laughed and said he knew that, but he wanted someone like Wayne. What the voter probably really wanted was the image Wayne created in his movies. In reality, the star never went to war or served in the military, like many of his peers such as Stewart, Clark Gable and Robert Montgomery. Ford would ride Wayne mercilessly about his lack of military service and his football prowess, comparing him unfavorably to Strode who was a star athlete. This is another strain of Ford's brand of masculinity, picking out a victim and tormenting him during shooting, like a fraternity brother toughening up a new pledge. But his actors, whom he used over and over again, loved him like a father.

Edmond O'Brien steals the movie in the traditional Thomas Mitchell role: a drunken sage who dispenses uncomfortable truth in his role as town newspaper man.

I preferred Ford's Wagon Master (1950) which was so simple, compact and uncluttered. Like My Darling

Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr. and Ward Bond in
Wagon Master.

Clementine, the focus is on community as laconic Ben Johnson and scrappy, overeager Harry Carey, Jr. lead a wagon train of Mormons through the desert to their promised valley. Along the way they encounter a troop of show folk (hammy Alan Mowbray and lovely Joanne Dru) and a scraggly all-male family of bank robbers including a young James Arness. The wagon train becomes a microcosm of society and the Mormons encounter friendly Indians, the brutality of the bank robbers, the eccentricity of the show people, and the harshness of their environment. This is Johnson's only starring role in a Ford film. He usually played a Southern Trooper or a supporting cowhand. Twenty years after Wagon Master he deservedly won an Oscar for his understated, naturalistic performance as Sam the Lion in Peter Bogdonavich's brilliant The Last Picture Show. 

There is one particularly brilliant sequence where the images tell the story. While the Mormons are celebrating a peaceful dinner with an Indian tribe, one of the Indian women, her clothes torn, runs in and cries in her language. It's clear what has happened. One of the bank robbers among the white people has attempted to rape her. The Indians are ready to kill all the Mormons, but Ward Bond as their leader thinks fast and agrees to have the culprit whipped in front of the assembly. All of this is conveyed with little dialogue and most of it in the Indian language, but Ford's economic and precise direction make the action transparent.