It was the summer of '67, I being a dozen years old then, that I really became aware of (and secretly wanted to be as cool as) the actor Lee Marvin. I can recall it as if it were only yesterday. I went to the Warner Theatre in Huntington Park in June/July of that year to take in Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen. Growing up, I had seen Marvin plenty of times before in reruns of M-Squad, plus his guest appearances as the heavy on TV shows of the time (Rawhide, Bonanza, etc.) and older movie westerns (Comancheros, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, etc.). But, it was here in this action/war film that the real impression of the man was ingrained into my susceptible psyche. I'll stipulate for the record that being cool then is a dimensional shift away from what that means today. It was definitely a more masculine era back then (for better or for worst).[Coincidentally, this actor and film would seem the antithesis to Carrie Bradshaw and the Sex and the City 2 movie which also opens today. All I can say is, what great timing! ;-)]
The rest of this post has been updated and moved over to my current blog, found here.
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