‘I don’t care what a boy who can’t read’: Lee Marvin had a bad time making this iconic western

John Ford was not an easy director with his actors. We knew he disparaged John Wayne, but he also attacked comedian Lee Marvin. The scene was set on the set of the western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a compilation film of Ford’s work, but it seems that filming involved some tension.

“I don’t care what the boy who can’t read thinks!”

is quoted Artwork by Christophe Leclerc Lee Marvin, Nobody Knows My Name Capricci, released on November 21, and which AlloCiné was able to consult in advance, the words of the director and actor are colorful:

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, after that we can bury Mr. Lee Marvin!”Ford begins Liberty after shooting Valance’s character’s death scene, to which his interpreter, Lee Marvin, immediately responds: “I’d rather say this is the movie we’re going to bury”.

Except that John Ford was not a man to lose so easily, he would come up with:

“I don’t care what the boy who can’t read thinks!”

“Enough in any case to see that twenty pages had to be cut from the script”Marvin replies, “That saves $25,000.”

The incident remains there. Marvin fumes. But far from being a “buried” film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was not only finished early, the studio recouped some of the money invested, but also a huge success, grossing $3.2 million in the US market alone at the time.

So Marvin was persuaded by Ford to work with him again on his next film.

They will make a movie together

And in fact, the actor would move on from that encounter and tour again next year with the John Ford/John Wayne tandem in The Irishman’s Tavern (1963), in which Marvin would play a barren drunk, a role he didn’t need to make up because he had a drinking problem himself.

Find this anecdote and many more in this Portrait book by Lee Marvin, published on November 21st by Capricci and available for pre-order now.