One-Eyed Jacks (1961

"You may be a one-eyed Jack around here, but I‘ve seen the other side of your face." Rio

Marlon Brando, after being declared the World's Greatest Actor(c) (insert ironic comment here) made his bid for World's Greatest Director, with this offering of One-Eyed Jacks. I don't know whether Brando felt he had gotten it right and there was nothing more to say, or that nobody else would hire him after seeing the masses of film (~ 4 hours worth) Brando turned in as the completed project, not to mention it was late and highly over budget. The studio cut Brando's finished work down to 2:20 and released it as it exists today.

One-Eyed Jacks follows the well-worn revenge trail for its storyline. A pair of faintly Mexican-looking bandidos, "Rio" and "Dad" (Marlon Brando and Karl Malden), are thick as thieves and actually that is their lifestyle, until a posse of Rurales gets hot on their trail after they knock over a bank for several saddle bags of gold. As they ride across the desert kicking up dust enough to choke a herd of buffalos, one of the horses gets shot. Marlon sends Karl on ahead to bring back fresh mounts while he stands off the posse. You know where this goes from here -

Five years later, the furtive figures of Marlon Brando, chained together with a Mexican convict (Larry Duran), are seen running away from the jail. When they are well away, they hear that Karl Malden is now the sheriff in Monterey - nine hundred miles away. From here the movie goes into revenge mode and the way Brando goes about it is unique, to say the least.

When they get to Monterrey, he finds Malden all set up as the big man in town, prominent house on the coast with dramatic waves crashing in the background, a beautiful wife (Katy Jurado) and a step daughter (Pina Pellicer).

Brando's charm disarms the leery Malden and he is invited to stick around. He has made common cause with a pair of no-goods (Ben Johnson and Sam Gilman) who plan to knock over the bank, which Brando agrees with. However, he also plans to knock off the sheriff who left him to rot in jail. A complicating factor arises when Brando seduces Malden's teen-aged step daughter at a fiesta. When Brando kills a man in self defense, it gives Malden the pretext to give him a public whipping and break his gun hand with a shotgun butt. How the rest of the story plays out, you'll have to see for yourself.

Several elements are noteworthy - first it is very rare for a western to be shot along the coastline with a good number of scenes shot with crashing waves as a backdrop. The sets are also very innovative and theatrical, giving an open path for the camera movement as well as being good looking. The cinematography is very well done with many breathtaking vistas and some nice camera moves like poking through a window to seamlessly move outside. The Hugo Friedhofer music is dramatic and well mated to the visuals. The acting is generally excellent, with many western character actors like Slim Pickens, Ben Johnson, Elisha Cook, Jr., Timothy Carey, and of course the beautiful and attractive Katy Jurado.

The problem is with Brando’s acting: he is a torrid guy with the ladies, I have no doubt, but his method acting with his six-shooter stuck barrel first into his pants seems very affected (not to mention plumb dangerous!), especially since he carries a pistol belt in his hand for his extra ammunition.

Brando also uses a couple of expressions meant to be threatening but come out unintentionally funny. "You big tub of guts" and "You gob of spit" stand in for intense profanity in Brando‘s lingo - and especially when delivered in his mumbly, high pitched nasal tone are guaranteed to spontaneously stimulate intense laughter when you see it. The one good quote was when Karl Malden asked him to stay for supper and Brando said, "Dad, I’m still in business." code for he was still a bank robber. Malden, of course, is Brandon’s old buddy from Streetcar Named Desire, and he has a good time and does a good job playing the heavy here.

The movie has a classical story which could have been lifted from Shakespeare, with lots of elements from the life of Billy the Kid. It meanders quite a bit but many segments have impact and the movie overall is worth seeing. Some of the stuff even looks as good as Peckinpah, which I think is tops.

The DVD is public domain and is presented in 4x3 television format. It is unrestored and has a number of visual and audio defects. I would like to see Paramount reissue this in a proper 1.85:1 theatrical format cleaned-up edition. As the movie is now, I give it three stars. It's a curiosity and a bit of a cult classic that should be seen by all movie lovers but the available public domain videos are crap.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV