Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The (Blu-ray) (1962)

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General		Extras
Category	Western	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1962
Running Time	123:21
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	John Ford
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	James Stewart John Wayne Vera Miles Lee Marvin Edmond O'Brien Andy Devine Ken Murray
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	$19.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Finnish French German Italian Norwegian Spanish Swedish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

“You cannot shoot back with a law book”

     Respected Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) unexpectedly arrive in the small town of Shinbone. They have come to pay their last respects at the casket of local man Tom Doniphon. Ransom has built his political reputation as “the man who shot Liberty Valance”, while Doniphon is unknown. While there, Ransom tells his story.

     Years before, as a new, idealistic law graduate, Ransom had come west by stage coach. Near Shinbone the coach was held up by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) and his gang. Attempting to protect a woman, Ransom is beaten unconscious by Valance and left for dead. He is found by rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) and his hand Pompey (Woody Strode), taken into town and left to recover in the hands of café owners Peter and Nora Ericson and Hallie, who Tom considers to be his girl.

     Shinbone is in a territory on the cusp of attaining statehood within the U.S., a town where the law is the gun, and gunmen, such as Liberty Valance rule, the town Marshall Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) lacking to courage to do anything. Ransom believes in the rule of law and justice, and he receives an unexpected ally in Tom, the only man capable of standing up to Valance. But as Tom points out, a law book is no good against a thug carrying a gun. In Shinbone, values are tested but in the end, to establish the rule of law do you need to use a gun?

     The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was directed by the legendary John Ford towards the end of his career. It is a mature work of art, no longer idealistic about the values of the American west as seen in such films as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). The film is helped immensely by the quality cast and a solid script. James Stewart is fine as the man whose values are tested, but the best performances come from John Wayne and Edmond O’Brien. Wayne plays second fiddle to Stewart for most of the time but gives a subtle, and surprising depth, to his performance; he also loses the girl. O’Brien has a whale of a time as the newspaperman Dutton Peabody and he steals every scene he is in. In contrast Vera Miles does not really convince and Lee Marvin is a one dimensional villain, which works OK in the context of the film. It is also pleasing to see Lee van Cleef as one of his henchmen.

     The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, while set in the American West, is far more than your standard Western. It is a morality play, a reflection on values with a great cast and remains a classic film 50 years after its release. And it looks just great on this Blu-ray release.

Video

     The Blu-ray of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, in 1080p MPEG4-AVC code. The original theatrical ratio was 1.85:1.

     The black and white print looks very good for a 50 year old film. It has good sharpness and contrast while shades of blacks and shadow detail is fine, giving a nice depth of field. Brightness is consistent. I saw the odd speck and a slight amount of motion blur but otherwise the print was artefact free.

     Subtitles are available in a wide range of European languages including English for the hearing impaired.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio available includes English Dolby True HD 5.1, German, Spanish, French and Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 Kbps and the English restored mono 2.0, the original audio track.

     It is good to have the original mono audio track available. It works well, with clear dialogue, useful in a film that is dialogue rich. Effects, such as gun shots and hooves, as expected lack the resonance of more recent films, but they sound fine. Hiss is absent. In truth, the 5.1 adds only a little separation and depth, with ambient sound and music in the surrounds on occasion. The sub-woofer was pretty much silent.

     Lip synchronisation was fine throughout.

     The score by Cyril Mockridge was only occasionally heard, as the dialogue dominated the film. Forgettable.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     Nothing, not even a trailer.

     There is no Region A US Blu-ray currently listed and the Region Free European Blu-ray seems the same as ours. None have the commentary and 50 minute documentary that were available on the Paramount Centennial Collection DVD released in 2009 in Region 1.

     Add director John Ford, the star power of James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles and Lee Marvin and a great script and you get The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a morality play, a reflection on values, and a classic film by any standards, still relevant 50 years after release.

     The film looks great and the original mono audio is available as well as a 5.1 mix. No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall