Lee Marvin played the outlaw Liberty Valance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
John Ford's 1962 Western centers on Ransom Stoddard, a young lawyer who becomes famous after apparently killing the feared gunman Liberty Valance. Marvin gives Valance a menacing, physically imposing presence, making him the force that terrorizes the frontier town of Shinbone.
The film is built around the gap between public legend and hidden truth. Stoddard receives credit for Valance's death, but a later revelation shows that Tom Doniphon, played by John Wayne, secretly fired the decisive shot. James Stewart plays Stoddard, creating the film's central contrast between law, education, political ambition, and frontier violence.
Viewers sometimes confuse Marvin's role with John Wayne's Tom Doniphon or Stewart's Ransom Stoddard because both men shape the story's reputation. Liberty Valance is not merely a generic villain: the character represents the violent order that the emerging state and legal system are trying to replace. The film was selected for the National Film Registry in 2007.