Ticket 2 Ride

For a lot of years I disliked Lee Marvin. He was a damn good actor and it was easy to despise him from those bad-guy roles.

Marvin was the perfect bad-guy. He looked the part, sounded the part and delighted in bullying and killing. It was acting, but it seemed real. The man had a tortured soul and it played out in the supporting and featured roles. He worked his way up through the ranks, becoming a leading man late in his career, winning a Best Actor Oscar for Cat Ballou (1965) when he was 41 years old, but certainly looked older because of his premature gray hair and ruddy features. His first starring role was in The Killers (1964), although it was supposed to be a television film, but it was too violent for living room audiences so it was theatrically released.

Marvin died in 1987, he was only 63. He looked about 90. I imagine that he packed a lifetime of hard-living into those 63 years.

For me, four films stand as the best examples of Marvin’s work. All dramas, but he did a few comedies, including Cat Ballou, which I wouldn’t say is one of his best films.

Why revisit Lee Marvin now? Recently I posted a blog about Samuel Fuller, and I included his casting of Marvin in The Big Red One. As I will discuss later, it was a perfect role for Marvin at that point in his life. Second, I watched Point Blank, which was a vastly underrated film, and maybe the best role of Marvin’s career.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

John Ford’s last great Western, Marvin plays the evil, psychotic title character. As a kid, this film gave me nightmares, Liberty Valance got delight from taunting and riding roughshod over the town of Shinbone. Valance is almost larger than life and only John Wayne’s Doniphon can backdown Valance. Outside of Doniphon, Valance inflicted his cruelty unchecked by the law or any other force.

Marvin and Wayne had appeared in numerous Ford films, Valance being the largest character role. While other Marvin roles were dialed back a bit, with the exception of the powerful Bad Day at Black Rock and the terrible Paint My Wagon, Valance was more Marvin’s film than either Wayne or James Stewart. Marvin’s unchained, menacing performance is almost scenery chewing, it comes so close to unbelievable.

There’s nothing redeeming about Valance, but he serves to represent the battle between the wild frontier and the coming of statehood and civilized society. The days of frontier justice are fading, as Stewart’s character, and what he represents with his law books and fancy suit will be taking over. Valance is what happens when there is an imbalance, when the frontier could not handle disputes and self-regulate. Marvin plays Valance as unchained and a king in his kingdom. It’s his right because that’s how it works in his world. He’s the alpha who is unchallenged, until he is.

Point Blank (1967)

Directed by John Boorman, this would be my vote for the Best Picture Oscar, yet it was not nominated for any major awards. I’d put it in the same category with The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night and Bonnie & Clyde – Point Blank is that good. This film was later remade as Payback starring Mel Gibson, James Colborn and Kris Kristofferson.

Point Blank also stars Angie Dickinson, Carroll O’Connor, Lloyd Bochner, Sharon Acker, John Vernon, Keenan Wynn and James B. Sikking. Boorman does an incredible job telling the story and shifting between the past and present. The cinematography alternates between sharp and bright colors to soft focus and shadows. Artistic (these were the 1960s), but not self-indulgent. Very powerful storytelling.

Now, Marvin is Walker, a small-time criminal who gets double-crossed by his partner (Vernon) and left for dead after a heist. Walker spends the film trying to get his share of the heist from the Organization he worked for. He has to work his way up the organizational ladder, trying to get his money, without success. The Organization puts a contract out on him. Walker also lost his wife to his ex-partner, who used the heist money to get a high spot in the Organization.

Walker is not a sociopath like his ex-partner, but he’s not resistant to killing those who get in his way. He is smart, and wisely steps back when the Organization mistakenly kills a few of their own when ambushing Walker. Sometimes quite violent, Walker is also contemplative and has to know when to reel-in his anger. Marvin portrays the vengeful, but cool character with equal parts explosiveness and earnestness, an odd combination. Walker hurts from the double betrayal, but once his anger dissipates, he becomes calculating and lets the Organization do some of him heavy-lifting.

Hell in the Pacific (1968)

A film with just two characters. That’s a big task for the actors and director. An American G.I. and a Japanese soldier (Toshiro Mifune) are marooned on an uninhabitable island. They stalk each other at first, usually just harassing each other, making each other’s life more difficult. The hostility becomes more prankish and they discover life is better when they cooperate in survival. John Boorman directed.

There is very little dialogue, but they learn to communicate with each other. They don’t need a share language to understand and express themselves. They even teach each other. Together they finish a raft and sail to an abandoned island. It was both a Japanese and American base. They find food and sake, and discover outside realities that unravel this new friendship.

Marvin and Mifune are fine actors that bring the script to life and infuse complex human emotions into their characters. Both are proud men, loyal to their countries, but not cold-blooded killers. Removed from their cultures, they can accept each other. It’s the formality of uniforms, patriotism and what they’re been taught that year at their relationship and similarities.

Marvin has met his match with Mifune, who was a famed and respected Japanese actor. Mifune teamed up with director Akira Kurosawa on a number of classics: Rashomon, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, High and Low and Throne of Blood. If acting is essentially reacting, Marvin gives as well as he receives. One might think a film with little dialogue and just two actors would be slow and uninteresting – not so. Both actors must communicate with their facial expressions, their eyes and what you wonder they are each thinking. The job of an actor in a film like this is quite challenging.

The Big Red One (1980)

Samuel Fuller waited over 20 years to make his autobiographical WWII film. John Wayne was offered to Fuller with a big budget, he turned it down. Marvin wanted the role of the Sergeant; both Marvin and Fuller had served in the war.

Marvin was in his mid-50s during filming, although he looked improbably old for the role, particularly in scenes where he portrayed his character during WWI, but somehow it seems to work. The Sergeant was in charge of a squad of infantry riflemen, young pups learning the ropes, watching other fresh recruits quickly die in battle. The Sergeant is gruff, but he teaches his soldiers how to stay alive, as best he can. It seems the squad is always overmatched against superior numbers of German soldiers or firepower. Fuller recreates a big war through a series of episodes from North Africa to Normandy, with a very small budget. In fact, the screen is filled with a thoughtful and riveting story of these young soldiers as they experience the horrors and humanity of war.

Marvin has very little dialogue, another character whose actions and minimal expressions must convey his story and guide his soldiers. The Sergeant leads with confidence and his experience. He does not put his soldiers in senseless danger. There is no swagger in the Sergeant, just a man wanting to get this job done with as little loss of life as possible.

Marvin is Fuller’s type of actor, bold, confident and expressive. In 1980, that is not exactly what he wanted in the Sergeant. He wanted an actor with internal restraint and who would act out his character through his fellow actors: the young soldiers. Marvin’s maturity and experience were essential to embrace this character. Having served in WWII and seen the horrors gave Marvin’s character a bulletproof will, but allowed a measure of compassion and empathy for those along the journey.

I’m reminded of Marvin’s character Fardan in The Professionals (1966), not the showy or arrogant leader of the group, cool and understated. Written by Richard Brooks from the novel, A Mule for the Marquesa, there are similarities between the Sergeant and Fardan. One might even say that The Dirty Dozen’s Major Reisman could be included in that group. The authority of those characters is understood and not often tested. Marvin gets great mileage from a stone-faced state and calm line of dialogue that resonates with tremendous assurance and clarity. There is nothing vague or wasted in his performances.