Music: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – Gene Pitney
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Directed by John Ford
The Posters
Between The Comancheros and Cat Ballou (Oscar), Lee continued his meteoric climb to the Hollywood heights with perhaps his most famous role as Liberty Valence in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Many will agree that Lees viscous performance easily upstages Hollywood greats John Wayne and James Stewart – and perhaps establishing an iconic benchmark for Western villainy. YET, on the official poster (below) we still see Marvin billed a distant 4th behind Stewart (billed first over Wayne?), Wayne, and Vera Miles – with no notable image of Marvin – even though his character (Valance) is in the movies title !!! I’ll never figure out Hollywood marketing.
Look for another furure Western Badguy superstar (yet to emerge) Lee (Van Cleef) as one of Marvin’s henchmen.
(Above) That’s Lee at the bottom … I guess
Love him or hate him, you’d really have to search for a long time to find a lousy picture of John Wayne. This guy was charisma personified.
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This movie has more layers of meaning than any western I can think of.
You know RIck, I haven’t seen this now for a while. They don’t show it that much on TV. ?? So I better pull it out and have another look. At least they haven’t colorized it.
This is one of our (mutual) favorites. Garry says originally Stewart got top billing because he has the bigger role, more lines in the movie. But after the PR guys did their analysis, it appeared the audience wasn’t buying Stewart above Wayne, so after that first PR release, they were on the same line. It’s all contractual agreements about who gets what billing … and of course the bottom line — who’s selling at the box office.
I see. Thank you.
It’s always interesting to watch how some of the posters change over the years (for the same movie) as some actors become more popular – and others maybe less.