Even those who disdain Westerns appreciate The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as an American classic: a grand movie that combines politics, law, journalism, history, and education with a love triangle as tragic and moving as Cyrano de Bergerac. The film’s flashbacks are Ford’s six-gun salute to the volatile America of yesteryear, where John Wayne rides tall, Lee Marvin (as Liberty) is the baddest bad man on the range, and the cactus rose grows untamed in the desert. All this changes, however, when Jimmy Stewart comes West with law books in his hand. The epiphanic last shots are worthy of Joyce.