One-Eyed Jacks / 1961 / Part 5 / The Cast / Brando’s Westerns

Marlon Brando’s (reworked) Westerns

Thom Hickey over at The Immortal Jukebox (https://theimmortaljukebox.com/) just posted a LIKE on a post I did back in 2013 called Brando’s Western Trilogy. (Thanks Thom!)

However, that post needs some very serious editing. I blatantly omitted Viva Zapata (1952). This movie starred Brando, Jean Peters, and Anthony Quinn – and was Directed by Elia Kazan with a screenplay written by John Steinbeck. If you ever wonder if there really was something special about Brando just consider this: his second movie A Streetcar named Desire was also directed by Elia Kazan and the screenplay was written by Tennessee Williams. Viva Zapata was his third film – again Directed by Kazan – with the screenplay written by Steinbeck. That’s pretty amazing really.

Viva Zapata posters 1 Viva Zapata posters 2 Viva Zapata posters 3 Viva Zapata posters 4 Viva Zapata posters 5 Viva Zapata posters 6 Viva Zapata posters 7

Viva Zapata banner

Viva Zapata Brando

Viva Zapata Jean Peters
Jean Peters
Viva Zapata Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Viva Zapata Henry Silva
Henry Silva has a small part

Viva Zapata Brando 2


Kazan

Elia Kazan

From Internet Movie Database (IMDB): Kazan Directed 21 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: James Dunn, Celeste Holm, Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, Anne Revere, Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters, Karl Malden, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Jo Van Fleet, James Dean, Carroll Baker, Mildred Dunnock and Natalie Wood. Dunn, Holm, Malden, Leigh, Hunter, Quinn, Brando, Saint and Van Fleet all won Oscars for their performances in Kazan films.

Kazan Quotes on Brando (IMDB):

“To my way of thinking, his performance in On the Waterfront (1954) is the best male performance I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“He was deeply rebellious against the bourgeois spirit, the over-ordering of life.”

“Every word seemed not something memorized but the spontaneous expression of an inner experience – which is the level of work all actors strive to reach.”


Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

steinbeck film 2 steinbeck film 3 steinbeck filmsteinbeck film 4


Viva Zapata Academy Awards

Anthony Quinn won the 1952 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The film was also nominated for:

  • Best Actor in a Leading Role – Marlon Brando
  • Best Writing, Story and ScreenplayJohn Steinbeck
  • Best Art Direction – Set Decoration, Black-and-White – Lyle R. Wheeler, Leland Fuller, Thomas Little, Claude E. Carpenter
  • Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture – Alex North

BAFTA Awards

Marlon Brando won the 1953 BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor. The film was also nominated for Best Film from any Source.

Cannes Film Festival

At the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, Brando won for Best Actor, while Elia Kazan was nominated for the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film.

Directors Guild of America

Elia Kazan was nominated for a DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures in 1953.

Golden Globe Award

Mildred Dunnock was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1953.


The Appaloosa (1966)

One of My Favorite Westerns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oglpgqb52Q

The Appaloosa Poster

The Appaloosa - Brando 3 The Appaloosa - Brando 5The Appaloosa - Saxon Sombrero 4The Appaloosa - Sombrero 6

 


 Missouri Breaks 1976

the missoui breaks poster The Missouri Breaks - Brando 2 The Missouri Breaks Nickolson The Missouri Breaks - Harry Dean Stanton The Missouri Breaks - Randy Quaid The Missouri Breaks

One-Eyed Jacks / 1961 / Part 4 / Karl Malden


mireille-mathieu / canta-en-espac3a3c2b1ol-la-paloma

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Karl Malden

March 22, 1912 – July 1, 2009

One Eyed Jacks karl malden One Eyed Jacks karl malden 2 One Eyed Jacks karl malden 3 One Eyed Jacks karl malden and brandoSIx Shooter Bar

Malden also previously starred with Brando in
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
and
On the Waterfront (1954)

SIx Shooter Bar Malden Westerns

the gunfighter poster

the hanging tree poster

one eyed jacks poster

how the west was won postercheyenne autumn posternevada smith posterblue posterwild rovers poster

One-Eyed Jacks / 1961 / Part 3 / The Cast


me and my uncle / distant sons

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Marlon Brando
(1924–2004)

 Did the camera like this guy? 

The combination of Talent, Charisma, and Sex Appeal is hard to come by.
And when it is found, a silent prayer goes out:
“God, don’t let them screw it up.”

One Eyed Jacks Brando 2

Like a Roman God, by Jove!

One Eyed Jacks Brando

One Eyed Jacks Brando Life cover

One Eyed Jacks Brando 5 One Eyed Jacks Brando 6 One Eyed Jacks Brando 7 One Eyed Jacks Brando 8 One Eyed Jacks Brando 9 One Eyed Jacks Brando 10 One Eyed Jacks Brando 11 One Eyed Jacks Brando 12 One Eyed Jacks Brando 13

SIx Shooter BarOne Eyed Jacks Marlon Brando - The ContenderSIx Shooter BarOne Eyed Jacks Marlon Brando 14

 

One-Eyed Jacks / 1961 / Part 1


Title Sound Track

“You may be a one eyed jack around here,
but I’ve seen the other side of your face.”

One Eyed Jacks

One Eyed Jacks

One Eyed Jacks Banner

One Eyed Jacks Marlon Brando One Eyed Jacks Malden Banner

Below: Full movie – not the restored version
from YouTube in English / 720 Resolution


One Eyed Jacks - IMDB reviewOne Eyed Jacks - Rotten Tomatoes reviewOne Eyed Jacks - AllMovie reviewONE EYED JACKS 5

One Eyed Jacks Restored …

One-Eyed Jacks / 1961

Brando rides again in restored Classic

One Eyed Jacks

One-Eyed Jacks / http://www.nziff.co.nz/2016/auckland/one-eyed-jacks/
Directed by Marlon Brando Retro
A singular Western rightfully restored for the big screen, Marlon Brando’s sole directorial effort and legendary film maudit arrives fresh from its enthusiastic reappraisal at Cannes.

Famously over-budget and severely trimmed by the studio, Marlon Brando’s sole foray into direction was a box office flop that remains a psychologically fascinating, visually stunning and too-seldom-seen entry into the Western genre. This stunning restoration by Universal Pictures and The Film Foundation was supervised by Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. It comes to festival screens direct from its unveiling at Cannes.
One-Eyed Jacks was actually the last time Brando acted out of true commitment, an uncynical passion for the material, and he gives one of his best performances as the outlaw betrayed by a friend (Karl Malden), seeking vengeance and finding love with the villain’s stepdaughter. His direction is perceptive and effective – all the actors are uniformly excellent – evoking especially fine work from the newcomers, notably Pina Pellicer as the young woman who falls for him. Katy Jurado is fine as her mother; Malden, always good, is superbly ambiguous here, and Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens are wonderfully authentic.” — Peter Bogdanovich, Indiewire

“Fascinating to see Brando directing this revenge Western exactly… as he acts, so that the whole movie smoulders in a manner that is mean, moody and magnificent… The Freudian intentions lurking in the character conflicts and the card symbolism, the homosexual and Oedipal intimations, are underpinned by the extraordinary settings… The result, laced with some fine traditional sequences and stretches of masochistic violence, is a Western of remarkable though sometimes muddled power.” — Tom Milne, Time Out

Pistol Bar

One Eyed Jacks

“You may be a one-eyed jack around here,
but
I’ve seen the other side of your face.”

Left holding the bag by fellow bank robber Karl Malden, Marlon Brando’s Rio emerges from five years of rat-counting in the Sonoma pen, only to find his old buddy now a respected lawman, complete with wife Katy Jurado (High Noon) and step-daughter Pina Pellicer (the Mexican actress in a heartbreaking performance as Rio’s love interest, underlined by her suicide within four years). Brando’s only directorial effort was the Heaven’s Gate of its day, complete with firing of initial director Stanley Kubrick and co-scenarist Sam Peckinpah, millions of dollars in cost overruns, and a first cut running to five hours. Away from the hoopla, it can now be seen as a fresh approach to genre clichés; with numerous on-set improvisations; one of the great screen insults (“You scumsucking pig!”); and rare for a Western: seaside scenes, shot near Monterey. 4K DCP restoration. “What is extraordinary about it is that it proceeds in two contrasting styles. One is hard and realistic; the other is romantic and lush… as if it had been directed jointly by John Huston and Raoul Walsh.” – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times. “The most memorable scenes have a fierce masochistic intensity, as if Brando were taking the opportunity to punish himself for some unknown crime. The bizarre action is set off by the classic Hollywood iconography of the western landscape (photographed by Charles Lang).” – Dave Kehr. “The Freudian intentions lurking in the character conflicts and the card symbolism, the homosexual and Oedipal intimations, are underpinned by the extraordinary settings… with waves crashing portentously in the background, so that nature echoes the Romantic agony of a hero much given to brooding in corners or gazing out into space shrouded in his Byronic cape. The result is a Western of remarkable though sometimes muddled power.” – Tom Milne, Time Out (London).

http://filmforum.org

The Appaloosa … parting shots …

Et tu Brando …

Screenshots: The Appaloosa 

The Appaloosa - Brando
The Appaloosa – Brando
“Amigos, Gringos, Compadres …“
The Appaloosa - Brando
The Appaloosa – Brando
“This was the noblest Gringo of them all.”
The Appaloosa - Brando
The Appaloosa – Brando
“To be, or not to be … “
The Appaloosa - Brando
The Appaloosa – Brando
“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind …”

The Appaloosa - Brando
The Appaloosa – Brando
“Alas, poor Pedro! I knew him … “

“I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.” ― Marlon BrandoSongs My Mother Taught Me

 

The Appaloosa Grande … Amigos …

3 Amigos

Don’t be fooled by their smiles …

The Appaloosa - 2 amigos
The Appaloosa – 3 amigos
John Saxon, Emilio Fernandez, Alex Montoya

… these are not your friends.

Nothing frames the face like a sombrero …
The Appaloosa - Sombero 6
The Appaloosa – Emilio Fernandez
The Appaloosa - Sombero 8
The Appaloosa – Brando

“There’s a line in the picture where he snarls, ‘Nobody tells me what to do.’ That’s exactly how I’ve felt all my life.”
Marlon Brando
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marlon_brando.html#5a8E93hCQ888oQ4c.99

The Appaloosa - Saxon Sombrero 1
The Appaloosa – John Saxon
The Appaloosa - Saxon Sombrero 2
The Appaloosa – John Saxon

“There certainly have been a lot of changes, although they come in such gradations that most people have either forgotten, or, if they’re too young, they never knew about them in the first place.”
– John Saxon
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_saxon.html#zdllIyCM3o8rPKck.99

The Appaloosa - Alex Montoya
The Appaloosa – Alex Montoya
The Appaloosa - Sombero 9
The Appaloosa – Alex Montoya
The Appaloosa - Emilio Fernandez
The Appaloosa – Emilio Fernandez

The Appaloosa … American Spaghetti …

Close Up and Personal 

Director Sergio Leone didn’t invent Close-Up shots, but he certainly was influential in their use. This is partly why The Appaloosa is often referred to as the “American Spaghetti Western” – as Director Sidney J. Furie uses close-ups extensively. The movie was also made during the height of Spaghetti Western popularity (1966) and has more than it’s share of Mexican banditos.

Leone’s Eyes … guess who ?

Leone's Eyes ...
Leone’s Eyes …

Eastwood, Van Cleef, Wallach, Bronson

Furie’s Eyes … In your face Amigo 

The Appaloosa - Close Ups
The Appaloosa – Screen shots – uncropped 

“The truth is, whether your film is about the great mythological character you have to do right, or it’s a little movie that nobody ever heard of, you still approach it like it’s the most important thing in the world. But failing goes with the territory. Filmmakers are like gunslingers, and you don’t win every duel.”

– Sydney J. Furie

Sydney J. Furie - Director
Sydney J. Furie – Director

The Appaloosa …

 A Breed of Renown …

Appaloosa - Wikipedia

Strangely, in The Appaloosa we don’t get to see the Appaloosa pony all that much – the movie is not really about the horse. But I still wish they had shown him more.  Truly a beautiful animal.
The pony in the movie was named Rojo.

Cojo Rojo

Curiously enough, the recent film Appaloosa (2008) starring Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen also has nothing to do with a horse either. One wonders if the title isn’t a nod to The Appaloosa.

The Appaloosa - Brando
Brando with the Appaloosa – alas, one of the few good images in the movie.

The history of the Appaloosa Horse breed is much too involved to put here, but the Nez Perce Indians were responsible for the North American breed.

File:Nezperceindians1895ish.jpg
Nez Perce Indians with Appaloosa / 1895
 

The Appaloosa (1966) …

The Appaloosa (1966) 

When you do a search on Google for ‘Western Movies of 1966′ here is what you will likely find:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Professionals, Nevada Smith, El Dorado,
Alvarez Kelly, Duel at Diablo, The Shooting, Navajo Joe,
… and a few others …

A few Western Classics mixed in with a few clunkers. But, all in all, a pretty impressive year for Westerns.

Yet on most of these lists there is one glaring omission:
The Appaloosa.
Why?

The Appaloosa a a good Western. It is well directed by Sydney J. Furie and has excellent Cinematography, and it has Brando and Saxon.
It also contains one of the most famous and powerful scenes in Western Film:
The famous scorpion arm wrestling scene with the between Saxon and Brando.

The Appaloosa - 1966
The Appaloosa – 1966

I am at a loss to figure out why this movie seems to have been so overlooked? Was there a big ‘hate on’ for Brando at the time?
Or was it a case of merely being overshadowed by two of the Greatest Western Classics of All Time: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and The Professionals?
???

I hope to see it eventually take it’s rightful place.

The Missouri Breaks … Death in the wind …

Death in the wind …
Nickolson
Nicholson

Blood on the mind …

The Missouri Breaks - Blood on the mind ...
Nicholson

Vengeance in the Heart …

Nicholson

Vengeance.

Not all it’s cracked up to be?

The Missouri Breaks - Confirmed ...

The Missouri Breaks - Brando

The Missouri Breaks – Gardening in Montana

The Missouri Breaks:
The Hazards of Gardening. 

The Missouri Breaks - Nickolson, Brando
Nicholson encounters an unwelcome garden pest

IMDB Trivia:
During the entire production Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando
were only on the set on the same day just one time,
despite their multiple scenes together.

This would account for the fact that it’s almost impossible to find
shots of them within the same frame.

The Missouri Breaks - Brando 7
Brando … Regulating

IMDB Trivia:
Marlon Brando’s performance was mostly improvised. Arthur Penn eventually gave up on him and decided to just let him act
whatever way he wanted.

Brando unprofessional behavior became the stuff
of movie legend. But he didn’t seem to care.
How profoundly this affected his career is hard to say?

MISSOURI BREAKS COREL
Brando … Ruminating.
The Missouri Breaks - Brando 5
Brando … killing cabbage.

IMDB Trivia:
Jack Nicholson also didn’t like the fact that Marlon Brando used cue cards while filming. In their scenes together, Nicholson broke his concentration every time Brando shifted his gaze to the cue card behind the cameraman.

 “I’d like almost anythin better ‘n bein burnt up.”

The Missouri Breaks - Brando 6
The Missouri Breaks – Brando …

IMDB Trivia
Brando
agreed to accept $1 million for five weeks work
plus 11.3% of gross receipts in excess of $10 million.

The Missouri Breaks - Jack Nicholson 2
Nicholson … If looks could kill.

– IMDB Trivia
Nicholson
agreed $1.25 million for ten weeks work,
plus 10% of the gross receipts in excess of $12.5 million.

In 1976 that was good loot.
Hell I’d go for that right now.
And retire.

 

The Missouri Breaks – The Cast

The Missouri Breaks / Directed By Arthur Penn

The Cast:

The Missouri Breaks opening
The Missouri Breaks – Montana Territory
The Missouri Breaks - Nickolson
The Missouri Breaks – Jack Nicholson

“Regulator? Ain’t that like a dry gulcher?” 

The Missouri Breaks - Brando
The Missouri Breaks – Marlon Brando

“Well, that’s not the softest term you could use, I’d say.” 

The Missouri Breaks - Kathleen Lloyd 2
The Missouri Breaks – Kathleen Lloyd

“Why don’t we just take a walk and we’ll just talk about the Wild West
and how to get the hell out of it!”

The Missouri Breaks - Randy Quaid
The Missouri Breaks – Randy Quaid

“Damn, I don’t know why they had to put Canada all the way up here.”

The Missouri Breaks - Harry Dean Stanton
The Missouri Breaks – Harry Dean Stanton

“The closer you get to Canada, the more things’ll eat your horse.”

The Missouri Breaks … 1976

The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Updated

The Missouri Breaks opening

Brando and Nicholson

Reviews/Ratings:

MISSOURI BREAKS IMDB Review

MyFavoriteWesterns.com

DVD Savant:
Movie: Very Good: “Even with its stellar teaming of Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, The Missouri Breaks was a big-bust movie in 1976 … Almost 30 years later, The Missouri Breaks plays a lot better … That ending is still a head-scratcher but most of the rest of the movie is a Western lover’s delight, with excellent and often hilarious dialogue between sad sack horse thief Nicholson and his pack of misfit rustlers. If anyone lets the film down, it’s Brando … “

Turner Classic Movies (TCM)
User Reviews: 4 out of 5
“The Missouri Breaks
 (1976) is not your usual Western. In fact, it’s not your usual anything. The words most commonly used in reviews at the time of its release were “bizarre” and “odd” and it must have equally confused audiences expecting something quite different from the inspired teaming of Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. But seen today, the film’s peculiar mixture of Western cliches, black comedy, quirky romance and revenge drama makes for a decidedly offbeat entertainment.”

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Death in the wind …

the missoui breaks poster

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MISSOURI BREAKS nicholson and brando MISSOURI BREAKS brando and nicholson MISSOURI BREAKS wheatfield symphony MISSOURI BREAKS see ya

The Missouri Breaks - Randy Quaid The Missouri Breaks - Harry Dean Stanton