ELEGANT MESS: Saw two movies this weekend that could rate that description: “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and “Five Star Final.”

There’s a lot to dislike about “Liberty Valance,” which I saw because I found it on some list of classic Westerns: stop-and-start pacing; constant repetition of the titular villain’s entire name just so we have it hammered into our heads; racial condescension; non-racial condescension and speechifying; oddly one-note performance from Jimmy Stewart.

But there are also several endearing or hard-hitting elements: I adored the drunken newspaper editor (“And to you, Horace Greeley, I shay, ‘Go west, old man! And grow young with the country!”… followed by his “Alas! poor Yorick” moment with his empty whiskey jug)–as you may have guessed from this post, I empathize strongly with (fictional!) members of the Fourth Estate, especially the ones who bestow drunken kisses on their printing presses. I liked John Wayne fine, better in this than in “The Searchers” (though that’s a more focused movie). And the movie ultimately becomes in some ways a more realistic, less clear-cut, less “with us or against us” reworking of “High Noon.” It’s darker and more wry than it at first appears.

Speaking of the Fourth Estate… “Five Star Final” is a melodrama about a tabloid whose sensational revival of a forgotten scandal prompts suicide. Edward G. Robinson stars, and is great, except when he’s forced to speechify; Aline MacMahon is also very good as his secretary. And Boris Karloff is hideously brilliant as a lecherous, deliciously creepy-crawly ex-divinity school student!

The dialogue is smart (except in aforementioned speechifying, sigh) and the bit characters get to be real individuals. I noticed this about “The Manchurian Candidate” as well–even the parts so small they’re relegated to the second screen on IMDB.com are memorable. I don’t see that so much in new movies, even good ones. Anyway, in the end 5SF is a melodrama, and a particularly histrionic one at that; more mess, less elegant, despite several flashes of fire.