The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

THE ANN RUTLEDGE THEME (from Young Mr. Lincoln) is the main music theme of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. (There is also a theme song recorded called The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, but it is not heard in the film.) The Ann Rutledge theme is played seven times:
1) Hallie and Link arrive in their cart at Tom's burned hut.
2) Ransom promises Hallie to teach her to read.
3) Tom brings a cactus rose to Hallie.
4) Hallie alone in the classroom.
5) Hallie binds Ransom's wound.
6) After the statement "print the legend", the train whistle, "getting late", Hallie's cactus flower on Tom's coffin.
7) After the statement "nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance", the train disappears in the horizon, THE END.

THE PSYCHOANALYTICAL ANGLE
1) The main symbols: the cactus rose and the gun.
2) The psychologically sensitive actors Vera Miles and James Stewart, both Hitchcock regulars.
3) Das Unbehagen in der Kultur: the theme of civilization being built upon the repression / control of our wild primitive forces.
4) The unhappy, unsatisfied woman, the childless Hallie.
5) Alcoholism. What makes the man drink: Tom loses Hallie, takes to the bottle, burns his house, almost commits suicide, and in a way the rest of his life is a slow suicide.

THE JOHN FORD STYLE
The unique combination of the over-the-top (the character of Liberty Valance, several other characters verging on the caricature and parody) and restraint. The most beautiful scene of restraint is the one where Hallie sits besides Link, and their looks tell everything. During the film, Vera Miles acts with her eyes.

THE SCREEN AND THE MONITOR
The eloquence of the restraint is evident on the cinema screen but may pass unnoticed on the home monitor. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is readily available on dvd and in tv programming, but to evaluate it it's necessary to see it on the screen.

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Viidakon partisaanit / Djungelpartisaner / Urskovens partisaner. US 1945. PC: RKO. EX: Robert Fellows. D: Edward Dmytryk. SC: Ben Barzman, Richard H. Landau - from a story by Aeneas MacKenzie, William Gordon. DP: Nicholas Musuraca. M: Roy Webb. Starring John Wayne (Col. Joseph Madden), Anthony Quinn (Capt. Andrés Bonifácio), Beulah Bondi (Bertha Barnes), Fely Franquelli (Dolici Dalgado), Lawrence Tierney (Lt. Cmdr. Waite). 95 min. A DFI print with danske tekster viewed at Bio Carl, Filmens Hus, Copenhagen, 4 September 2008. - The story of the Philippines during WWII told as Hollywood entertainment. Japan conquers the Philippines from the US and grants them fake independence. The US manage to win even former anti-US Filipino freedom fighters to their side (the Bonifácio story). - An interesting feature is that the influential Filipino female speaker on the Japanese radio, Dolici Dalgado, is actually a counter-spy for the US. - John Wayne is very good in his role of the guerrilla leader. - It starts with desperate losses, and guerrilla warfare is punished with excessive retribution by the Japanese. - Wayne portrays convincingly the control needed in heated moments, when he is provoked, and especially when the arguments against him are valid: the terrible moral choice of carrying out guerrilla strikes while innocent civilians get sacrificed. Wayne can project leadership based on innate authority and dignity. - Beulah Bondi is also very good as the schoolteacher turned guerrilla. - There are fine action scenes, as the one where Andrés Bonifácio (Anthony Quinn) is rescued from the prisoners' terrible death march by ruse. - Maybe the finest sequence is the confession in the Catholic church, where Bonifacio disguised as a priest meets Dolici and first then realizes that she is on their side and not the Japanese propagandist everyone thinks she is. Also Fely Franquelli gives a fine performance.