James Stewart, the actor who taught me how to speak English

There is this young lawyer who comes from the east coast to cowboy country in the southwest. . He preaches that disputes should be settled by law and not by gun. He is certainly a strange figure and cannot stop talking peace in that cowboy country. For his peaceful ways he is called the ‘ pilgrim ‘ by a local rancher who befriends him. The rancher, who knows how to use a bullet or two, tries to tell the lawyer to not talk about peace all the time. But one fine day the lawyer somehow manages to anger a notorious outlaw who calls him for a fight. Well, this young lawyer really does not know how to use a gun but nevertheless accepts the call for the fight. People worry that this nice kid will end up getting. killed. Then the day dawns and everybody is there to see the fight. The bully and the lawyer face each other and both pull the gun at the same time. People close their eyes not wanting to see the kid die. But look ! Something strange has happened. The bully is shot and is dead whereas our lawyer cannot believe that he shot him down ! Whatever it is, the kid gets famous for killing the outlaw. Eventually he makes it to the US Senate. Did the kid lawyer really shoot the bully ? I wont spoil it for you !

This is what I remember from that famous movie of my early days of cinema viewing. This classic western was directed by John Ford , probably the greatest director of western films. The notorious outlaw was played by Lee Marvin , who later won an Oscar for the film Cat Ballou (with Jane Fonda ) . The Big man who keeps calling the lawyer as pilgrim and who is wonderful with gun is played by John Wayne, probably the most famous actor in that genre of films. And the the lawyer from the east was played by an actor who was already at the pinnacle of movie fame. He was James (Jimmy) Stewart and the film was The MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE . James Stewart , if alive, would have been 100 years old this month . He was named recently as one of the top three Greatest Male Stars of all times by the American Film Institute.

It is probably strange to introduce James Stewart with this western film because it was not really his type of a movie. However, there were elements of comedy in the film and and Stewart excelled in such stuff. Those were called screwball comedies . It was not the Chaplin variety but some thing conveyed with nods, expressions and small talk. There were many other actors , even greater in some ways and many more handsome - but he probably represented middle America better than anybody else. James Stewart really was the quintessential mid westerner – no New York or California in him. According to some, he was boy-next-door and it is for this that he is best remembered.

James Stewart did several Hitchcock films. The ones I remember are The Vertigo, The Man who knew too much , The Rear Window. Vertigo was really great with the seductive Kim Novak trying to play two roles. The Man who knew too much which starts in Morocco had Doris Day singing the famous Que Sera , Que Sera and the famous scene at the symphony. The Rear Window had him lying in his bed with a plaster around his leg watch a murder from his window and try to avert another. He was nominated several times for Oscars and I think he won it once.

James Stewart was quite well known for some of his earlier films like the Philadelphia Story (with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn), Mr Smith goes to Washington ( directed by Frank Capra , it is an idealistic film how people can do good in poltics ) , It’s a wonderful life (shown every Christmas). I was lucky to see all those films later . According to Wikipaedia ‘ He won many of the industry's highest honors and earned Lifetime Achievement awards from every major film organization.’ What is equally important is that he was almost universally described by his collaborators as a kind, soft spoken man. He died in 1997.

There is an important reason for the likes of me to remember English movies and old American actors. At that time in our lives , English was still a script staring up at us from text books. It had yet to become a language, a tongue in which we could speak to others. It was during those days that we made our slow transition from regional (Hindi etc) movies to English moves. Just like we had learnt to speak Hindi earlier, we were going to learn English now with the help of movies. We were taken in by the great Marlon Brando but we could not make head or tail of his speech. But actors like James Stewart, Gregory Peck etc spoke English which one could understand and we tried to speak like them. If we had even little success at all in our lives later in conveying our thoughts and feelings to others , the credit should go to English movies and actors like Jimmy Stewart ! It was the likes of him who helped us make an alien tongue our own ! Happy 100th birthday , Jimmy, from your English student !

(Photos courtresy of internet)