MovieChat Forums > Paint Your Wagon (1969) Discussion > John Wayne in 'True Grit' was better tha...

John Wayne in 'True Grit' was better than Lee Marvin here?

posted 18 years ago by woljm45
5 replies | jump to latest

I always thought 'Paint Your Wagon' was some sissy musical that Lee Marvin and Eastwood did to avoid the tough guy label for future casting.

I happened to catch a few minutes on TCM which inspired me to finally buy the DVD and watch the whole thing, and WOW, I'm so happy that I did!!! This was a really solid movie with funny lines and some great songs, escpecially 'Wandering Star' and 'Gold Fever'.

What really stands out was Lee Marvin's performance. There were times it was over the top and repetitive, but overall he carried this movie with his humor. I went back to check the 1969 Academy Awards and it listed John Wayne won Best Actor for playing Rooster Cogburn in 'True Grit' and I couldn't believe my eyes. The Duke definately rocks, but he has about as much range as Charles Bronson, his character
is the same each time. I can't see why Lee Marvin didn't even at least get a nomination for his work.

This was a grave injustice.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] kevintuma 16 years ago

Rooster Cogburn was a good character role for Wayne, but I agree that he's no match for Lee Marvin's Ben Rumson.

Wayne received an Oscar for True Grit as a sort of recognition for his lengthy career as a movie star. It was not his best film, nor even in his Top Ten best films.

By contrast Paint Your Wagon was brilliant, and Rumson was clearly Lee Marvin's best-written and most memorable role. It will be the movie he is remembered for 100 years from now.

[–] present_day 16 years ago

Lee Marvin should have won, hands down. Wayne was good, even great, but Marvin was incredibly masterful at acting in this one, far superior to Wayne flat character, a character he had play so many times before...*yawn*...

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

I think it was a "We had better give the Duke an Oscar before he croaks!" type of situation. In any case, Lee Marvin had already been awarded the Best Actor Oscar just a few years before that in Cat Balou.

[–] rixrex 10 years ago

John Wayne deserved the oscar regardless. He should have gotten it for The Searchers. He had a greater range than you've given him credit for. Sure he played variations of the same character many times, but not always. And even within the same general character, the variations are what makes each one unique. Rooster Coburn is not like any other Wayne character in total and I'm glad he got the oscar, even if there were other performances of greater range that year.

That award is not given for merely the performance of the one specific picture, but many other reasons come into play. You may not like it, but that's the way the folks in Hollywood want it, and it's there's to give. If it were given for talent, Hitchcock would have won several.

Lee Marvin's acting is too often out of a bottle. He's almost always got to be drunk to do anything practically interesting, as he was both here and in Cat Ballou. Look at him in some other roles, and you'll see nothing particularly greater than other good actors of the time. Also, PYW was a flop, and oscars rarely ever go to those involved in flops.

MArvin's mistake was to take the PYW paycheck instead of going with The Wild Bunch.

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