The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), John Ford's classic Western, is yours to watch online on iFILM. Senator Ranse Stoddard turns up at a quiet funeral in the dusty town of Shinbone. Nobody can work out why a powerful politician would bury an unknown cowboy. So he sits the local newsmen down and tells them how it really happened.

Years back, young lawyer Stoddard (James Stewart) stepped off the stagecoach with his law books and his faith in due process — and ran straight into the whip of the outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who ruled the territory through fear. The man who stood up for the stranger was rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), who trusted a gun over a statute. Two men, two ideas of how to tame the frontier, and Hallie (Vera Miles) caught between them.

This is late, valedictory Ford — staged deliberately small on soundstages, none of the Monument Valley vistas he made famous. It gives us that famous line from the editor: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." The film picks apart how a nation's founding myths get made, and what they cost. The best way in if you want to grasp where the Western had arrived by the early 1960s. Stream The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) online on iFILM.