A film about heroes who pursue the realization of a noble ideal, which makes them worthy and upright people, and who, guided by that compass, can never go astray. Ramson Stoddard (James Stewart), a recent law graduate driven by his dream of a world where justice allows those lofty ideals to be achieved, will face off in that Wild West, against everyone to achieve it.
On that path of the peaceful hero, he drags others to follow him, even those who had already given everything up for lost, as is the case of that journalist Deaton Peabody (Edmund O'Brien) thrown into drink and from whom he no longer shows or a glimmer of imagination or talent, but to which Ramson will inspire and wake up that sleeping hero full of courage, intelligence and ingenuity and together they will advance on that path of the brave man, sure of himself and who knows what he wants and where he is going .
Our other secret hero Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), rather inspired by the love of a woman, will contribute to these lofty ideals being fulfilled in the figure of Ramson Stoddard, giving him all the prominence even at the sacrifice of his own ideal, the love of a woman, it is curious how when someone recognizes a hero in the figure of a person, it makes him sprout, the illusion and the desire for those highest and most sublime causes, one's own and these are the motive and the reason From the sacrifice of his own, Doniphon understands that the progress and democratic civilization of the community in which he lives, need another type of hero, different from those who are imposed by the blow of the trigger and pistols, heroes who steal the hearts of the citizens convinced that the future belongs to the law, to rights and to a new society marked by peace and the harmony of good men.
John Ford the director, the teacher of the Western who began his career in this genre with "The diligence" (The Stage Coach, 1939) and he will finish it in 1961 with his last western paying homage to the classic genre, he filmed this film when he was 69 years old, when he saw that this genre was coming to an end, he moved away from conventionalisms such as large and wide exterior spaces, horseback riding and color that had been shown in many productions of the genre desert centaurs (the searchers, 1956), horizons of greatness (the big country, William Wyler, 1958), The seven magnificents (The magnificent seven, John Sturgess, 1958) or The man from Laramie (The man from Laramie, Anthony Mann, 1955). Ford shoots in black and white and takes refuge in the small town of Shinbone, from which the camera practically does not come out. Here the gunslingers no longer move on horses or cross large meadows at the foot of Monument Valley, instead, Tom Doniphon moves in the dark of night, showing that the violence and rudeness of men like Tom Doniphon have been necessary so that good may triumph, that our world of well-being, peace, comfort and opulence have been conquered thanks to the sacrifice of many who had to resort to violent and unpleasant solutions.
