The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

[ronnie]

On Lee Marvin's first day on the set, John Ford called him over and said, "You just did a movie with John Wayne [The Comancheros (1961)]. Wayne did some directing on that, right? Well, that's not happening here. Duke's not doing anything on this picture but what I tell him."

[jamie]

According to Woody Strode, John Wayne was so hurt by John Ford's abuse that he took it out on Strode. While filming an exterior shot on a horse-drawn cart, Wayne almost lost control of the horses and knocked Strode away when he attempted to help. When the horses did stop, Wayne tried to pick a fight with the younger and fitter Strode; Ford called out, "Don't hit him, Woody, we need him." Wayne later told Strode, "We gotta work together. We both gotta be professionals." Strode blamed Ford for nearly all the friction on the set. "What a miserable film to make," he added.

[bernard]

John Ford only shot just what he needed with very little extra coverage on. He also preferred to do a minimum of takes, saying that after the first few, the actors get tired and jaded and their performances lack spontaneity. That's why he liked to work with the same people over and over again (the famed Ford "stock company"), because he could count on them to know what he wanted and give it to him on the first take.

[toni]

Shinbone is a fictional town most likely located in Southern Colorado. Since it is stated the cattlemen reside north of the Picket Wire (Purgatoire River) and Tom Donophin is the "Toughest man south of the Picket Wire" the territory of the movie is most likely Colorado.

[carl]

In Two Rode Together (1961), James Stewart wore the same hat in the film that he had worn in all his westerns with director Anthony Mann, prompting John Ford to remark, "Great, now I have actors with hat approval!". Ford refused to allow Stewart to wear any hat in this film, while John Wayne wore the most flamboyant wide-brimmed ten-gallon hat that he'd worn in film since the 1930s.

[kristina]

Lee Marvin's first scene (the stage hold-up) presented problems for the actor--he couldn't seem to get a handle on his character. After several takes, John Ford instructed the stage driver not to throw down the cash box when Marvin demanded it. This had the effect of greatly notching up Marvin's anger, causing him to shout, "NOW!" The take was printed.

[morris]

Final film of Blackie Whiteford.

[javier]

In 1967 John Ford was quoted as saying that the film was based on historic facts, although he never said, and evidence never revealed, what those facts might have been.

[claude]

Although most sources say the film was shot almost entirely at Paramount Studios, with exteriors on the Janss Conejo Ranch in Thousand Oaks, California, a documentary about the making of it revealed that the town and train shots were done on Lot 3 at MGM.

[albert]

Photographs exist of the entire cast seated around a table for what was a John Ford tradition: formal tea time on the set.

[chris]

Cyril J. Mockridge was hired to score the picture, but John Ford used a bit of music from Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) score under some of Vera Miles' scenes. Ford later told Peter Bogdanovich that he used Alfred Newman's "Ann Rutledge" theme for the same reason in both films, to evoke the feeling of lost love. He also told Bogdanovich that he made it apparent (through this music and other means) that Miles' character Hallie had never gotten over Tom Doniphon because he wanted John Wayne to be the lead rather than James Stewart.

[duane]

At the beginning of the movie, in the scene in which Vera Miles comes near John Wayne's burned house, the music from John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) is played.

[lena]

This was the second John Ford movie each for Vera Miles (The Searchers (1956)) and Jeanette Nolan (Two Rode Together (1961)).

[harry]

In the cast as an uncredited townsman was Danny Borzage, brother of director Frank Borzage and something of a Ford mascot. Borzage had been playing bits in John Ford's films since The Iron Horse (1924) and was always on set to play mood music on his accordion for the cast and crew between scenes and sometimes during them.

[edgar]

Throughout the course of the movie, instead of calling him by name, Tom Doniphon refers to Ransom Stoddard as "Pilgrim" a total of 25 times.

[ken]

Several reasons have been put forward for the film being in black and white. John Ford once claimed it added to the tension, but others involved with the production said Paramount was cutting costs, which was why the film was shot on sound stages at the studio. Without the budget restraints, Ford would have been in Monument Valley using Technicolor stock. It has also been suggested that since both John Wayne and James Stewart were playing characters 30 years younger than their actual age (Wayne was 54 when the movie was filmed in the autumn of 1961 and Stewart was 53), the movie needed to be in black and white because they would never have gotten away with it in color. The age difference was particularly noticeable in Stewart's case, since he was playing a young lawyer who had only just graduated from law school and had moved west without even practicing law back east.

[bernice]

When Dutton Peabody stumbles back drunk to his newspaper office, he partially recites the Saint Crispin's Day speech from William Shakespeare's "Henry V". The speech, given just before Henry V's army defeats a superior French force, foreshadows the upcoming gun battle between Ransom Stoddard and gunslinger Liberty Valance.