BEST LEE MARVIN MOVIES
“The Big Heat” (1953) Marvin plays a gangster pursued by a homicide detective (Glenn Ford), who pays a big price for opposing the Mob, in director Fritz Lang’s celebrated noir melodrama.
“The Wild One” (1953) Though it mainly was Marlon Brando’s movie, Marvin made an impression as a rival motorcycle-gang leader in this drama, which Turner Classic Movies will show as part of its all-day “Summer Under the Stars” tribute to Marvin on Saturday, Aug. 28.
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962) Marvin plays the titular Valance, a troublemaker whose actions prompt a link between a lawyer (James Stewart) and a rugged local (John Wayne), in director John Ford’s superb Western. “Donovan’s Reef” (1963) Marvin is rowdy fun, as is fellow star John Wayne, as they work again with director Ford in this story of scheming militaryveteran comrades who make French Polynesia their base (though the picture was shot in Hawaii).
“The Killers” (1964) As a too-curious hit man, Marvin gets to be properly brutal in this adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway short story that was made for television, but ultimately deemed too violent to debut there.
“Ship of Fools” (1965) In director Stanley Kramer’s large and impressive cast, Marvin is excellent as a former baseball player who’s one of the passengers on an early-1930s voyage.
“Cat Ballou” (1965) Marvin became an Oscar winner in the dual roles of a drunken Western legend and a coolly sinister villain in this satire of the genre.
“The Professionals” (1966) The characters played by Marvin and Burt Lancaster are among the mercenaries hired to retrieve a tycoon’s kidnapped wife in director-screenwriter Richard Brooks’ first-rate Western adventure.
“The Dirty Dozen” (1967) Easily one of
Marvin’s signature projects, director Robert Aldrich’s great World War II classic features him as a major given the task of training 12 convicts for a mission that could earn them amnesty if they succeed ... and survive.
“Point Blank” (1967) Rightfully reputed as one of the grittiest melodramas of the ‘60s, this revenge saga casts Marvin as a double-crossed thief out to even the score with his former partner (John Vernon) and ex-wife (Sharon Acker).
“Hell in the Pacific” (1969) Reuniting with director John Boorman, Marvin is one of only two actors – the other being Japanese icon Toshiro Mifune – in this tale of soldiers who boil World War II down to a microcosm when they’re both stranded on the same island.
“Monte Walsh” (1970) In more of a character study than he normally did, Marvin is first-rate as the title cowboy, who struggles with the realization that
the Old West as he’s known it is slipping away. The film was directed by noted cinematographer William A. Fraker (“Bullitt”).
“Emperor of the North” (1973) Working again with filmmaker Robert Aldrich, Marvin impressively gets his hands dirty – along with every
other part of him – as a hobo who’s the target of a vicious conductor (Ernest Borgnine, also a co-star of
“The Dirty Dozen”).