The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

by Chris Yogerst

A new offering in the nascent Reel West film history series that focuses on that quintessentially American cinematic art form, the western.

Few lines of movie dialogue have had greater impact than the most famous line from John Ford’s 1962 masterpiece The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Although critics of the day did not realize its magnitude, with time The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has become cemented in our popular culture. This film connects to nearly every Western before or after, from Ford’s own Stagecoach (1939) to Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992).

Coming six years after The Searchers, Ford’s other great late-career masterpiece, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may be even more archetypal of a changing West. In this first-ever book on the subject, Chris Yogerst unpacks one of the signature films of the post-classic Western period and one of the greatest works of director John Ford and actors John Wayne, James Stewart, Lee Marvin, and Woody Strode.

160 pages, Paperback

Published October 21, 2025

Reviews

[Chris Haynes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't care for this addition to the Reel West series. Is was more of a history lesson on the impact of the movie more than it was about the movie itself. I thought it was repetitive and relied too heavily on quotes from movie critics. I was looking for a deeper dive into the making of the movie, but instead it just repeated things I'd already heard.

There are a lot of typos and misused words in the book; i.e. it used the word "prior" when it meant "after". It could have used one more proofreading pass.

[Clarence Pruitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of the better Reel West books I’ve read. It was a bit repetitive overall and needed another proofread. There were numerous typos, missing words, and extra words. As well as the occasional factual error like citing Jack Lemmon as being in the cast of The Long Gray Line.