As much as I am a fan of John Wayne, I have to ask is it me, or am I over-exaggerating? You notice in every movie these two are in( Liberty Valence, Comancheros, or Donovan's Reef), The Duke always kills or beats up Lee Marvin? I think the Duke had it in his contarct to outdo Lee because Lee was a genuine war hero and JW was only a hero on the silver screen. Can I get a "whoa amen!" out there?
shareLee Marvin was a Marine and an unaplogetic bad-ass.
John Wayne had one lung for several years, sported a bad wig, and wore lifts in his shoes the last few years of his career.
Is this an over-simplification of the match-up? Yeah, probably so.
But having said that, I'm laying the smart money where it belongs.
Advantage Marvin. Third round knock-out.
Considering that bouth Marvin and Wayne are two of my Favorite Actors.... Actualy that is a good question don't have a Clue. On this movie though I was suprised that Marvin didn't last longer in the movie. Was shocked he left so early in the movie, I was looking for him to make a Recovery toward the end when They were in the bad man camp.
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"Futurama"
Lee Marvin and John Wayne were friends. Wayne had been a supporter of Marvin since the 1950's even producing Seven Men from Now, an early Marvin movie staring Randolph Scott. Wayne's friend C.V. Whitney produced Missouri Traveller, a movie that gave Lee his first staring role.
When this movie was made, and the others you mentioned, Wayne was a big star and movie icon. Marvin was still stuck in roles on TV and in movies where he played mostly villians or cops.
People didn't yet pay to see a Lee Marvin movie. They did pay to see a John Wayne movie. Marvin didn't become a big box office star until after he made Cat Ballou and won the academy award. Guys like Wayne helped war heros like Marvin get into the position of becoming a star.
Are you over-exaggerating? What do you think?
P.S. One could argue that John Wayne kept Marvin's movie career afloat from 1958 until 1965. The only theatrical films Lee made were films that had connections to John Wayne. An exception, The Killers was orginally made as a TV movie. Almost everything else Lee did during this period were guest starring roles on TV. He did have an uncredited role in Walk on The Wild Side in 1962. Even one of Lee's appearances on an episode of Wagon Train had a connection to Wayne as it starred Wayne's good friend Ward Bond.
I recently bought a special DVD The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and was surprised to find Ford, Stewart and Marvin on the commentary along with Bogdanovich. The cast represents a sort of reunion of Ford's stock company with Carey and Johnson notably missing.
Nothing is said, though, about Van Cleef and Martin. I recently watched Joe Dakota with Jock Mahoney. It's a variation on Bad Day and Black Rock with Charles McGraw in the Robert Ryan role and van Cleef and Claude Akins in the Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin roles. van Cleef and Akins make a great but strange comedy team.
It would be tough. Let's face it you can say this about John Wayne, he was really tough. There is a story where John Wayne was staying in a hotel at the same time as Frank Sinatra, when Sinatra had a loud party in his room that woke up John Wayne. Wayne went to ask for them to try and keep it down. Sinatra's bodyguard asked or implied in some unfriendly way what Wayne would do about it. I guess Wayne kicked his ass and Sinatra made sure to keep the noise down. I don't know if it is true, but I don't think Wayne feared too many people. I think Wayne and Marvin appeared to have a good time working together. In the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance they were really flip sides of the same coin, basically the same character on different sides of the law.
shareHollywood and the U.S. government wanted Wayne to stay out of the military so he'd make what could be construed as propaganda films for them. It's a bit unfair to use his lack of a military record against him when he signed up and by all accounts was deeply troubled by the fact they he never served. Perhaps he could have forced them to let him join up, but they benefited a lot from the image he sold of the military.
It's not exactly difficult to buy Wayne going over him on screen in a fight though; Marvin was a big guy, but Wayne looked big next to him which says a lot.