Ottersis (who also loves Westerns) loaned me this, and I was home with a cold, so I got to pick the movie. They're all too old, Mr. Otter kept saying about the people in this movie. And well, okay, he was right. They look fine at the end, but that's years later; in the major part of the movie, which is a flashback, Wayne and Stewart are about 20 years too old (both being in their mid-forties at the time, and starting to look every year of it.)

That quibble aside, this is a good Western. Stewart is a newbie who comes to town to be a lawyer, and finds that the local outlaw, Liberty Valance, pretty much owns the town and has frightened the sheriff (Andy Devine) into submission. Stewart also ends up in the middle of a political fight in which (of course) the evil money-grubbing cattle ranchers have hired Valance's gang to threaten the townspeople into voting against statehood.

The final gun battle and the repercussions thereof are excellent, with John Carradine in a great cameo as a filibustering contender for political office. Lee Marvin chews scenery with gusto as Liberty Valance. Stewart and Wayne play off of each other nicely.

But the real winner here? Edmund O'Brien plays the town's curmudgeonly alcoholic newpaperman, and totally steals the show. What a treat his performance is! Especially since the last thing I saw him in was the totally turgid Barefoot Contessa.

Very enjoyable, good plot, great characters, good ending. Rent it, buy it, enjoy it.