Although his crown is fading now, John Ford was the undisputed king of film directors during the heyday of the 'auteur theory'.  He was perfect for the role, having made 75 post-silent movies with consistent themes and a varied but personal selection of styles.  Just as his career was finally coming to an end, he made two last pictures for Paramount that sum up both his career, and many of the ironies of his personal philosophy.

Stagebound and talky, Liberty Valance doesn't have much action and almost plays like a picture from the '30s, which is not a complaint.  Colorful characters like Ken Murray's Doc and Edmond O'Brien's Dutton Peabody come right out of the Stagecoach school of 'alcoholism-is-cute.'  Considered Ford's final word on the Western genre, most of the ideas here are depressingly retro, after Ford's (assumed) liberalization that began with The Searchers.  ¹  Showing that the colorful reputation of the noble politician is based on a lie might sound subversive, until the end, when it's smugly declared that inconsistencies with the 'official story' are best swept under the carpet.   As a truth-killer, it's the equal of the ending of Fort Apache, where military stupidity and the double-crossing of the Indians are hidden in the interests of Army pride, sentimentality, and tradition.  'When the facts conflict with the legend, print the legend,' has a sentimental appeal to everyone who wants history to be a rosy tale of simple conflicts, nobly resolved.  But it's the same ideal that made the politics of beloved actors Stewart, Wayne, Reagan, and others come off as fascism to my generation.  'Trust us', they said so paternalistically ... 'We have charisma'.

But Savant needs to back-track away from these critical readings of Ford to emphasize the honesty in Valance.   John Ford IS America, they used to say, and they're right, as his sentimental way of smoothing over the rough edges of American society expresses well the virtues of the country even as it exposes shortcomings.  No matter how I try to analyze his films, the better ones have a ring of truth and pride that is almost familial.  Enjoying movies doesn't mean you have to agree with them, and Ford's movies are the perfect vehicle for understanding the American mindset, which has a strange relationship with its Western myths.   The Western doesn't even begin to come into focus without the foundation of Ford's West; all the movements that came afterward are a reaction to him.  Sergio Leone started with abstract cynicism but eventually made his masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West as an anti-capitalist response to the world of Ford; Sam Peckinpah in his major Westerns deconstructed the John Ford world, with frequent direct quotes of his films.  ² John Ford's idealizing of the West is the conservative's way of finding peace and rest in the safe and secure past ... where the big issues are already resolved, and controversy is the tool of petty troublemakers.  Ford's followup Paramount film would make this Ford world-view even more acute ...

Footnotes:

1. The liberal taint in latter-day Ford never coalesces into anything like a changed point of view; The Searchers very strongly communicates a moral dilemma, suggesting that the Indians might have had justification for resisting Yankee encroachment ... a huge admission for the maker of Fort Apache.   Cheyenne Autumn, on the other hand, comes off as pitiful whining that expresses very little except some urge to cleanse himself of the cultural ills his earlier movies had foisted on native Americans.
^Return

2. Yes, sure, the obvious Peckinpah lift is his use of Ford's favorite hymn 'Shall we gather at the river;' I'm talking about tiny references, like the shawl on the old lady that Pike Bishop helps across the street.  William Holden takes the old lady's arm and shawl just as Henry Fonda in the classic Ford filmhad taken Clementine Carter's.  It's one of the highest expressions of instinctive chivalry in all of Ford.  Then Peckinpah make a vicious comment by having that same shawl be what Holden pulls from his spur and discards, after trampling the old lady to death under his horse!
^Return