The man who shot Liberty Valance

[Flopper]

Pitney had the title song in the movie "A Town Without Pity". Not "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". John Ford wanted no part of it.

"A Town Without Pity" was the title song in the 1961 movie of the same name. I remember the movie. It was a bit sad but not that good. It starred Kirk Douglas. It was an early movies about rape. Of course in those days we never saw the rape which was why most people people went to see it.


It was certainly nothing anything near the quality of the movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

 

[whitehall]

You could say the Duke Wayne character was a cowardly assassin.

 

[Flopper]

You could say the Duke Wayne character was a cowardly assassin.

You could, however we are talking about John Wayne who doesn't have a cowardly bone in his body, at least that's his screen persona.

Jimmy Stewart actually wanted the role of Wayne played. In order to sign Stewart there were a number of changes made.

 

[surada]

"A Town Without Pity" was the title song in the 1961 movie of the same name. I remember the movie. It was a bit sad but not that good. It starred Kirk Douglas. It was an early movies about rape. Of course in those days we never saw the rape which was why most people people went to see it.


It was certainly nothing anything near the quality of the movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

 

[whitehall]

You could, however we are talking about John Wayne who doesn't have a cowardly bone in his body, at least that's his screen persona.

Jimmy Stewart actually wanted the role of Wayne played. In order to sign Stewart there were a number of changes made.

It doesn't matter who starred in the movie. Stewart and the Duke met again in Wayne's last movie Shootist. The character Tom Donophen in Liberty Valence was guilty of cold blooded murder. Did it Duke's character do it because he wanted to see the nerd lawyer run off with his girl? He should have shot the lawyer.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Since I cannot shoot a gun . i dont think I would elect to fight Mr. Liberty Vallance. I would have to flee town or hire a gun slinger.

Who would simply become the new Liberty Vallance. Paying people to defend you never leads to the employer-employee dynamic you think it will. From a standpoint of maintaining personal liberty (no pun intended), the biggest mistake people made in the old west was being so caught up in profits that they hired people to carry guns so they could earn with both hands.

I saw that movie when I was a kid, and it made perfect sense to me. It was of no importance whose bullet actually stopped Liberty's reign of terror. What mattered is that a dishwasher/lawyer was ready to lay down his life to kill the bad guy and that another townsman backed him up. When you do that, there is no need to turn your safety and freedom over to men for whom carrying a gun is their only talent.

 

[Woodznutz]

A valid underlying theme was that sometimes you have to go around the law in order to preserve society from outlaws. We need more of that today as the law seems ineffective at doing their job.

 

[Flopper]

A valid underlying theme was that sometimes you have to go around the law in order to preserve society from outlaws. We need more of that today as the law seems ineffective at doing their job.

I think the lines by Scott, the newspaper man gives us the primary theme of the movie. “Truth is only meaningful as long as it agrees with what the public wants to hear. When heroes don't exist, it is necessary to invent them. And, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
What most of us accept as "history" is a patchwork of real events, exaggerations, and tales so tall that Paul Bunyan would likely blink in amazement.