The Dick Powell Theatre: “The Losers”

Re-posted by N.S.

I’d heard abut this one-shot episode from The Dick Powell Theatre for many years. I knew it had something to do with Sam Peckinpah, but I didn’t catch the tie-in to The Westerner, until a couple of days ago, when I saw that someone had re-posted it here.

During the 1960s, Lee Marvin (1924-1987) was the hottest actor on TV and in movies. He gave one brilliant performance after another.

He should have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for playing the thug Liberty Valance, in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). The following year, he starred in a two-part TV movie in which he so stunning as an alleged traitor, that the producer had it cut up into a theatrical feature, Sergeant Ryker. In 1965, he played a dual role in silly, modern Western whose nominal star Jane Fonda was, Cat Ballou, but Marvin stole the show doing a parody of Liberty Valance. In a split-vote, Marvin won the Oscar for Best Actor that year, Richard Burton’s Oscar.

Marvin starred in Richard Brooks’ The Professionals (1966), which Sam Peckinpah ripped off, and turned into his masterpiece, The Wild Bunch (1969). In 1967, Marvin and Angie Dickinson starred in John Boorman’s neo-Noir, Point Blank, about a man who gets ripped off, in more ways than one, by his crime partner, best friend, and the mob. He also starred that year in Robert Aldrich’s box office hit, The Dirty Dozen, one of the most ripped-off movies ever made, about a ragtag unit of death row inmates who go on a suicide mission, for the sake of their freedom.

Marvin was reportedly the first star to get a cool million per movie, but by the end of the 60s, his drinking was destroying him. However, he gave a brilliant performance starring as Hickey in O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh (1973). He should have been up for Best Actor again, but the producer only released the picture for one weekend.

Keenan Wynn was a great character actor, who could do just about anything, and for many years, one of the hardest-working actors in the business.

Wynn’s herculean work ethic cost him his first wife, Evie, and his best friend, Van Johnson. As Scott Eyman recounts in his monumental biography of MGM chief and co-founder, Louis B. Mayer (1885-1957), By 1949, people were whispering about MGM’s biggest star, Van Johnson. He was never known to be involved with any woman. The only woman who made him light up was Evie Wynn, whom he frequently escorted, when Keenan was off on a shoot. Meanwhile, whenever Evie Wynn was seen being chaperoned by Johnson, she just lit up like a Christmas tree.

L.B. Mayer’s intelligence was impeccable. So, he brought in Evie for a talk. She negotiated for everyone involved. She loved her husband, and ensured that he would continue to get lots of work, but she was madly in love with Van. And so, Mayer and Evie arranged that Evie would divorce Keenan, and marry Van. She bore Van a daughter, Schuyler, and they stayed together until 1962, when he absconded with his tennis pro.

@mikedoran9851

“When this show first ran in ‘63, my father recognized the names of the characters, from a series called The Westerner from a few years before. That was a ‘traditional’ Western, with Brian Keith as ‘Blasingame’ (Lee Marvin’s part) and John Dehner as ‘Burgundy’ (Keenan Wynn’s part). Sam Peckinpah did that old series; Four Star gave him a shot at an update. This was what came to be called a ‘backdoor pilot’; this time, the backdoor stayed shut. It happens ...”

The Dick Powell Theatre: “The Losers”