the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guests Aoife Martin, Jason Coyle and Ronan Doyle, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

In the early twenty-first century, Senator Ranse Stoddard returns to the dreary town of Shinbone. What was once a frontier outpost has become a modern town, and the locals are surprised to see such an important figure making the journey. Stoddard has come home to attend the funeral of an old friend, but the occasion brings old memories and dark secrets to the surface.

At time of recording, it was ranked 250th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 24th August 2021.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance at The Internet Movie Database.
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• Read Jay’s articles at Scannain.
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• Read Ronan’s articles at Scannain.
• Listen to Jay and Ronan occasionally at the Scannain podcast.
• Xan Brooks reviews Searching for John Ford for The Guardian, June 2003.
• Philip French reviews Searching for John Ford for The Observer, May 2003.
• Kyle Smith at National Review tries to untangle the politics of John Ford, January 2018.
• Bertrand Tavernier talks to The Irish Times about the legacy and the reputation of John Ford, June 2013.
• Kenneth Turan looks back on the life and career of John Ford for The Los Angeles Times, July 1994.
• Mark Morrison at The Hollywood Reporter looks at what happens to Academy Awards after the winners die, February 2016.
• Directed by John Ford, October 1971.
• Josh Cluderay at JoshCluderay.com discusses John Ford as an auteur, July 2014.
• Quentin Turnour at Senses of Cinema discusses the challenges of interrogating John Ford as an auteur, April 2004.
• Charles Barr at The Irish Film Institute discusses John Ford as an Irish American filmmaker, June 2012.
• Kristina Longworth looks at the relationship between John Ford, Peter Bogdanovich and Polly Platt for You Must Remember This, June 2020.
• John Ford talks to Roger Ebert for The Chicago Sun Times, April 1968.
• The Sight & Sound Top 100 Critics’ Poll, August 2012.
• The Sight & Sound Top 100 Directors’ Poll, August 2012.
• The BBC’s Top 100 American Films, July 2015.
• Katie Dowd at The San Francisco Gate looks at why so few classic movies are available on streaming services like Netflix, January 2019.
• Martin Scorsese talks to The Irish Film and Television Academy about the influence of John Ford on his films, February 2017.
• Charles Silver at the Museum of Modern Art looks at the influence of John Ford on the films of Akira Kurosawa, September 2013.
• Steven Spielberg talks to The American Film Institute about the influence of John Ford on his own body of work, February 2013.
• Joseph McBride at The Los Angeles Times attempts to decode the complicated and tangled politics of John Ford, June 2001.
• Tony Perrottet at The Smithsonian Magazine looks at the relationship between John Ford and Monument Valley, February 2010.
• Darko Nanevski at Abandoned Spaces looks at how John Ford made Monument Valley his own, October 2017.
• Mike D’Angelo at The A.V. Club looks at the problematic legacy of John Ford’s treatment of Native Americans on screen, June 2015.
• A.O. Scott takes a look back at the cinema of 1962 for The New York Times, October 2009.
• Sergio Mims at Roger Ebert takes a look back at John Ford’s Sergeant Rutledge, June 2021.
• Mark Ayala at The New Beverly Cinema takes a look at John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn, May 2017.
• Kevin Gover discusses the casting of Johnny Depp as Tonto in The Lone Ranger for The Smithsonian Magazine, July 2013.
• The Takeaway discusses the racial politics of casting Johnny Depp as Tonto in The Lone Ranger, July 2013.
• Keith Uhlich reviews Seven Women for Slant, April 2005.
• Audrey Amidon at The National Archives looks at John Ford’s service during the Second World War, May 2016.
• Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg discusses John Ford’s The Battle of Midway for The Atlantic, August 2011.
• Joanne Ostrow at The Denver Post looks at how Deadwood interrogates the foundations of American society, June 2006.
• Tony Williams at Senses of Cinema discusses Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country, released the same year as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, October 2014.
• Sarah Fisher at Talk Film Society looks at how Alfred Hitchcock explored and subverted Jimmy Stewart’s public persona, July 2014.
• Stuart Miller at The Guardian looks at America’s lingering love affair with the western, October 2016.
• Ken Bowser at American Masters looks back on the career-defining relationship between John Ford and John Wayne, May 2006.
• Ken Bowser and Sam Pollard talk to American Masters about their documentary John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend, May 2006.
• Robert W. Welkos at The Los Angeles Times looks back on the relationship between John Wayne and John Ford making The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, September 2000.
• Stephen Metcalf at The Atlantic looks back on the complicated and tumultuous relationship between John Wayne and John Ford, December 2017.
• Richard Schickel at The New York Times looks back over The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance‘s place in John Ford’s filmography, January 2000.
• A.O. Scott at The New York Times discusses the collision of history and mythology in John Ford’s filmography, June 2006.
• Graham Fuller at The New York Times marks The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as the end point of a certain type of western, March 2000.
• Keith Phipps reviews The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for The A.V. Club, June 2009.
• Roger Ebert reviews The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for his Great Movies series, December 2011.
• Brandon Soderberg at The Baltimore Sun positions The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as a great movie about the sixties, April 2015.
• Adam Nayman at The Ringer situates The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in the context of Kennedy era cinema, March 2020.
• David Von Brehle at Time compares the mythmaking of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with the myths around the Kennedy family, August 2009.
• Alan Brinkley at The Atlantic looks back at the legends cultivated around John F. Kennedy, August 2013.
• Tierney McAfee and Liz McNeil at People discuss how Jackie Kennedy invented the myth of Camelot around her husband, November 2017.
• Ellen NicKenzie Lawson at The Gotham Centre looks at the myths and legends about Joseph P. Kennedy during Prohibition, February 2020.
• Abigail Horne at Black Cinema discusses Pompey’s role in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Winter 2012.
• The New York Times reviews A Man Called Horse, April 1970.
• Richard Brody looks back on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for The New Yorker, October 2009.
• Jay’s promotional artwork, August 2021.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: america, aoife martin, civilisation, James Stewart, jason coyle, jimmy stewart, John Ford, John Wayne, legend, myth, podcast, ronan doyle, The 250, the old west, the west, violence, western |