Lee Marvin: Point Blank

by Dwayne Epstein

  Kaufman and Marvin, both former combat Marines, became friends and mutual admirers while filming. “I also knew the first time I met him that he was unusually bright,” recalled the writer. “He was a very smart and articulate man. I think, but I’m not sure from the way we talked, but it might have been part of his excessively masculine macho romanticism that he was kind of a black sheep.”

  One of the stand-out details the actor created for his character concerned his shirt tails. “I didn’t have anything in the script about that,” recalled Kaufman. “Lee was the greatest actor in the history of show business for trying to get the tail of his shirt in his pants and never succeeding… Also, he had quite a bit to do with a kind of character outfit: the hat he wore, the boots he wore, the soiled jeans, that kind of thing. He was a bright guy… Also, the way he carried himself. Other things he did, he did brilliantly. For example, when he’s playing around as Spence is trying to get out of town. He takes out a pistol and he twirls it in his hand. He did that better than any cowboy actor I’ve ever seen.”

  Friend and neighbor Alvy Moore remembers seeing Marvin in the film, and had a slightly different take: “See, Lee was the kind of guy that hated gimmicks. He would point out a gimmick on a guy and he was one of the biggest gimmick actors there was. In Bad Day At Black Rock he had that shirt tail hanging out. He always had some gimmick and I used to laugh at that because he was always one of the first to point out somebody else using some kind of thing, which is all right. If it all fit with the character, that’s fine.”

  Holding his own within the powerhouse cast that also included Walter Brennan, Anne Francis, and John Ericson, Lee Marvin had several other moments that stood out. One of Marvin’s first lines in the film remains one of his best. When he and the others watch one-armed Tracy lug his suitcase into the hotel, Marvin sneers, “You look like you need a hand.” He was of course speaking in character, but he could just as easily have been speaking sarcastically of his career in support of other actors. When it came to such support, Marvin was experienced enough to state his personal favorite. “I’ll grant you one basically fine actor is Spencer Tracy,” he said in 1961. “When he turns it on, he’s really a rough guy.”

  The tedium of the film’s Lone Pine, California location often led to Marvin playing poker with the cast. The card game was a popular pastime in Hollywood and the actor played regularly at home with his other friends. “One night there was this poker game in his home,” recalled Alvy Moore. “There was Neville Brand, James Garner, L.Q. Jones, and a stuntman I can’t remember. I didn’t gamble. Number one, I was afraid of my money and the little bit that I had, so I served drinks and just sort of watched the game. Jim Garner hadn’t done anything at that time. He was gone in fifteen minutes. They whacked him clean. He was gone. Neville Brand got really drunk and they took him to the cleaners. He didn’t show up for work at Paramount the next day. They couldn’t find him the whole next day or the next.”

  When Marvin won or was working steadily as in 1955, he was an effusive gift giver to his wife. Betty recalls, “Like on my birthday he would give me a bicycle with a basket, the old fashioned kind and it would wind up being in the room. Then, in the basket, there’d be a little box with a beautiful diamond. He gave me the most beautiful gifts of any man I’ve ever known… He always was a class act. I’m telling you, he was classy. That’s what most people don’t know about him. He had amazing taste. Did not give me one gauche piece of jewelry. Nothing gaudy. Beautiful sterling silver bangles and beautiful turquoise belts.”

  Next for Marvin was Violent Saturday, a hybrid of two different genres, noir and soap opera. He played one of three hoods who come to a small town to rob its bank in the midst of the strange and perverse habits of its citizens. The film costarred Richard Egan as a drunken philanderer, Sylvia Sydney as an embezzling librarian, Tommy Noonan as a peeping tom, Ernest Borgnine as a conflicted Amish farmer and Stephen McNally, J. Carroll Naish, and Marvin as the bank robbers.

  The headliner was Victor Mature, a popular hunky star of the 1950s who never took himself too seriously. While filming one of the many ‘Sword and Sandal’ epics he made in his career, he once walked into a local bar in full Trojan dress as the patrons stared in shock. He smiled and asked, “What’s the matter, don’t you serve servicemen here?”

  Directing Violent Saturday’s cross between The Asphalt Jungle and Peyton Place was the prolific and underrated Richard Fleischer, the son of animation pioneer Max Fleischer. He remembered Lee Marvin fondly, stating, “All you had to do was meet Lee. You knew he would fall right into a slot. When you see somebody like Lee, you know just where he’s going to fit into your cast. If there’s a part for him, it’s his the minute he walks in… Well, I probably interviewed the usual suspects. With him, when you meet him, you know what he’s going to play. I think that comes across in one of my favorite scenes of any picture I’ve done; the night before the robbery. It’s a unique scene and it’s Lee’s scene, of course. It’s a hilarious moment in a serious situation. I don’t think anybody else could’ve pulled it off.”

  Years later, film critic Judith Crist marveled at the same scene in 1965, writing: “If you just ignored Victor Mature, the nominal star… you could concentrate on Marvin as a Benzedrine-sniffing hood, catch every nuance, watch his perfect pace, revel in a superb monologue on the skinny broad he married whose perpetual contagious colds gave him the Benzedrine habit. And you realize, watching his performance, that Marvin stood distinct and apart from the maudlin melodrama swirling around him. A pity we had to waste 10 years watching any number of ‘stars’ do ineptly what he had clearly mastered long ago.”

  He continued to etch interesting portraits of humanity’s dark side by playing a cynical med student in Not As A Stranger. The film was Stanley Kramer’s directorial debut, and he cast Marvin in the small role because of Marvin’s ability to give the part, as he described it: “Sincerity and giving the role a character beyond what was written. In other words, he sought out an identification, and once he found it, he played it that way.” Marvin came away largely unscathed, but Kramer’s lengthy homage to the medical profession flopped in spite of the presence of Robert Mitchum, Olivia DeHavilland, Frank Sinatra, Broderick Crawford, Charles Bickford, and Gloria Grahame.

  Lee’s next film gave him much more screen time as well as a trip to Mexico City. The quickly made low-budget A Life in the Balance cast Marvin as a deranged killer who kidnaps the young boy who witnessed his crime. In a classic noir twist, the police blame the boy’s luckless widowed father, played by Ricardo Montalban for Marvin’s deeds. Anne Bancroft also appeared in the film as Montalban’s love interest. In playing such unsavory characters, Marvin rationalized, “I got to do things on film that, if you did on the street, they’d send you away… I think we’re all potentially violent. But most don’t get the chance to act it out. And those that don’t, sometimes do it. All those mass-murderers that their neighbors remember as such peaceful guys…”

  He was next seen playing an aging musician during the gangster wars of Prohibition in Jack Webb’s Pete Kelly’s Blues, released the same month as A Life in the Balance but with much more fanfare. Webb produced, directed, and starred in his tribute to the roots of jazz, and lined up an offbeat cast that included Janet Leigh, Martin Milner, Edmond O’Brien, Andy Devine, Ella Fitzgerald, Jayne Mansfield, and Oscar-nominated Peggy Lee. “I think everybody was certainly in awe of Ella and Ella was so self-deprecating,” recalled costar Milner. “She would say, ‘Oh, is that okay?’ or ‘Did I do that right?’ Of course, she was wonderful. And everybody was very impressed with the acting job that Peggy Lee did because nobody expected it.”

  Marvin next tirelessly lent a hand in the proceedings of I Died a Thousand Times, a full-color, almost scene-for-scene remake of Humphrey Bogart’s High Sierra with Jack Palance taking over the lead. Marvin was back in henchman status in support of Palance and costars Shelley Winters, Earl Holliman, and Lon Chaney, Jr. However, unlike other less than matinee-i
dol-handsome contemporaries, such as Palance or Ernest Borgnine, stardom and name recognition continued to elude Lee Marvin.

  His eighth and final film of 1955 was one of the strangest of his career while being one of the most rewarding for him on a personal level. It was Shack Out on 101, in which he played the aptly named ‘Slob,’ a cook in Keenan Wynn’s roadside beanery with Terry Moore as the waitress everyone drools over, although she is in love with nuclear scientist Frank Lovejoy. Cold War paranoia infuses the film, as one of the many characters may be a Communist spy. The bizarre unintentional comedy was filmed in just ten days and includes an uproarious scene of Marvin and Wynn working out with weights that Moore states was totally ad-libbed. “Lee was an amazing actor,” said Moore. “He had split-second timing. In the scene where he hits me, he did it so real by coming so close, but he never touched me. I really passed out at the end of the scene.”

  Moore, the former Mrs. Howard Hughes, also claims that both Marvin and Wynn imparted their wisdom of the sexes upon her. “They even gave me advice on how to treat men,” she said. “Lee and Keenan both told me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t go beyond normal sex. Pretty soon, other things won’t turn you on. Pretty soon, you become a voyeur who won’t enjoy anything.’ I always remembered that.”

  During the filming Marvin and Wynn bonded in friendship that deepened quickly and lasted throughout their lives. According to Wynn’s son, Ned, “They were the best of pals and always got along. Dad adored Lee. I think it was because Lee was a no-nonsense kind of guy. He just was who he was. My dad admired that because he was like that. My dad thought Lee was a tremendous actor and thought he would be a big star. He always told him so.”

  One of the ways in which they bonded was through their love of motorcycles, which they occasionally roared through the showroom of the Beverly Hills Mercedes-Benz dealership. Bud Ekins, stuntman and motorcycle store owner, remembers the days when the likes of Marvin, Steve McQueen, and especially Keenan Wynn, would frequent his store: “Yeah, I guess there was a time or two they’d be in the shop or with a group of about a half a dozen. They [Marvin & McQueen] hardly knew each other, really. They’d see each other maybe two or three times, but it was always in a crowd. Keenan knew Steve better. Keenan knew everybody. Keenan knew you even before he met you.”

  The work kept coming, and Marvin’s first offering of 1956 was one of his all-time best. Cult film director Budd Boetticher’s Seven Men From Now was produced by John Wayne’s company and starred Randolph Scott as a former sheriff seeking the men who killed his wife and robbed his town’s bank. It was the first of a series of now cult westerns made by Boetticher and Scott in which vengeance and redemption are intertwined.

  A few days into the production of Seven Men From Now, Scott was so impressed by Marvin’s performance as his nemesis, he mentioned to Boetticher, “This kid’s good. You should give him more lyrics.” The director agreed, and he and screenwriter Burt Kennedy expanded the role. Enlarging the role of the villain set a precedent for such succeeding films in the series as The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, and Comanche Station. Marvin indirectly helped the careers of Richard Boone, James Coburn, Stuart Whitman, and Pernell Roberts.

  It was on the set of Seven Men from Now that Marvin first met the iconic Wayne. “Lee comes out and he’s got this coat on,” remembers Kennedy. “He went up to Duke who introduced himself and Lee said, ‘This coat had your name in it at wardrobe but it’s a little tight for me.’ That’s what he said every time he saw him, and Duke loved it.”

  “Lee was great,” proclaimed Boetticher. “When he came on set for me to approve his costume—you know, ‘How does this look? Is this all right?’ He had a hooker’s bright, red garter on his left arm. It was just magnificent. He wore it through the whole picture, keeping the audience guessing when he was going to explain and he never did. That’s the kind of thing Lee Marvin would bring to a part. That’s what you want from an actor.”

  The director was so impressed with Marvin it resulted in the creation of an inventive twist to the standard western showdown. “He was one of the few actors who really knew how to handle a gun,” Boetticher said of Marvin. “It made me want to try something I had never seen in a western before. I’ve never seen in a western a gun-fighter practicing his draw. So, what I did was every chance I could, I had Lee draw and practice. His death was so dramatic when Randy shot him because of that. He just stood there for a minute and stared at his hands in disbelief. The audience loved it. The reaction, when we previewed it at the Pantages, was something I had never seen before. They stopped the film and reran the scene.” Years later, even when Marvin could no longer remember the name of the film, he always claimed it was his favorite death scene. Unfortunately, the film remained largely forgotten until the advent of home video.

  In each of almost every decade of his career, Marvin successfully collaborated on films with renowned director Robert Aldrich, the first of these being 1956’s Attack! Based on the play “Fragile Fox,” which was the film’s working title, it was also the first time the actor would play a commanding officer. The gritty World War II era film had Eddie Albert as an opportunistic captain whose cowardice under pressure causes the death of so many of his men that one of his lieutenants, played by Jack Palance vows, “If I lose another man on account of you, I’ll shove this grenade down your throat and pull the pin!” The all-male cast of Robert Strauss, Richard Jaeckel, Buddy Ebsen, William Smithers, and Marvin as Albert’s wily commanding officer, interacts around this conflict.

  Aldrich put his cast through their paces by rehearsing them in full uniform for nine days and then filming some of the dangerous battle scenes in the early hours between 4:30 and 7:30 am. A record 657 pounds of gunpowder were set off for these scenes, resulting in the kind of stark and realistic war film that Marvin would make a staple of his career. Aldrich’s cinematographer Joe Biroc recalled, “Well, we made that local and it didn’t cost much… Marvin was a damned good actor. He was well-respected. Hey, that’s why Aldrich hired you.”

  As the politically ambitious Colonel Bartlett, Marvin convincingly drawled in a southern accent, intimidated and cajoled the weaker Albert, and just generally lent his powerful presence to the moody action film’s non-battle scenes. “He was totally in charge,” recalled costar and decorated veteran Eddie Albert. “He was always in charge. He had done his work.” Having worked with him on live television, Albert recalled, “Every time I saw him he had grown tremendously in charge of the peculiarities of acting. He had a wonderful voice.” Most of the cast and crew had also seen action during WWII, helping to create one of the best films of its kind. Unfortunately, it too failed to find an interested audience when it was released.

  Lee Marvin had hoped the role would lead to other impressive projects but the follow-up was more of a step backwards. Pillars of the Sky, an over-ripe western of Cavalry and Indians starring Meyer Mishkin’s bigger-named client Jeff Chandler, was a serious letdown compared to Attack! Fifth-billed, and doing a badly Irish-accented cavalry sergeant, Marvin seemed to base his performance on mimicking costar Ward Bond. “Lee, in those days, was very much like he was after he became a star,” recalled his Pillar costar Martin Milner. “He was proud of his military background and he made a big deal out of that. You hand him a rifle to do something in a scene and right away he’d be playing with it. But, he was very opinionated, even to the point of being real cocky, beyond what somebody of his particular niche in the industry was at that point.”

  That cockiness brought about a confrontation on the film’s set with movie veteran and political conservative Ward Bond. Marvin very rarely let his personal politics enter the work place, but when Bond railed against the Communist threat and expressed his opinion that the U.S. should attack Russia, Marvin could not contain himself. He silenced Bond by stating, “Ward, what war did you ever fight in? I was in the Marine Corps. Infantryman. I know what it’s about. You fought your best wars right here on the backlot of Universal.”

  Marvin wa
s next seen, but just barely, in the Paul Newman Korean War era film The Rack, based on Rod Serling’s TV drama about the abundance of traitorous American soldiers who were complicit with the enemy. In June of the same year, he gave what would be his last stage performance in the La Jolla Playhouse production of “Bus Stop.” He had appeared at La Jolla in a production of “The Rainmaker” with James Whitmore the year before. In “Bus Stop” he essayed the lead role of Bo Decker, the big, lovable cowboy just off his Montana ranch to find a mate in the big city of Phoenix.

  Frank Cady, later best known as Sam Drucker on “Green Acres,” who played Marvin’s partner, recalled how Marvin inadvertently skipped over the dialogue that lead to Cady’s one big scene. Such occurrences are common in live theater but it bothered Cady since his wife had gone to great pains to drive down to see the play that night. “After the play,” recalled Cady, “the actors would all meet at the bar at the La Jolla Inn. I introduced my wife to Lee while we were there and he said, ‘I’m sorry you had to travel all that way and miss Frank’s big scene.’ He then jumped up and the two of us acted out the whole scene for her right there in front of everybody in the bar. So, my impression of him changed dramatically from that moment on. I thought he was a prince of a guy.”

  Marvin had planned on doing more live theater but, as he later stated, a successful film career kept him from ever trodding the boards again. His wife Betty remarked, “I feel very strongly that the longer you stay away from the stage the more frightening it is. You always hear actors saying, ‘I gotta get my chops. I gotta go back.’ They get frightened. Live theater is a bigger responsibility too, let’s face it. You get do another take on film. But on stage, there you are, totally naked without retakes.”

  The limited run of the play was done through the graces of MGM which granted Marvin time off from shooting Raintree County. The massive production was the studio’s unsuccessful attempt to capture the magic of Gone With the Wind, but from the point of view of the North. Montgomery Clift starred as an idealistic young Hoosier in search of the legendary Raintree. Along the way he forsakes his true love, Eva Marie Saint, for beautiful but unbalanced Southern belle Elizabeth Taylor as he gets swept up in the events of the Civil War.