One-Eyed Jacks
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| One-Eyed Jacks | |
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 One Eyed Jacks promotional poster |
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| Directed by | Marlon Brando Stanley Kubrick (uncredited) |
| Produced by | George Glass Walter Seltzer |
| Written by | Rod Serling Charles Neider Guy Trosper Sam Peckinpah Calder Willingham |
| Starring | Marlon Brando Karl Malden Katy Jurado Pina Pellicer Ben Johnson Slim Pickens |
| Music by | Hugo Friedhofer |
| Cinematography | Charles Lang |
| Editing by | Archie Marshek |
| Release date(s) | 1961 |
| Running time | 141 Min 300 Min Director's Cut have been destroyed original cut footage do not exist anymore |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
One-Eyed Jacks, a western movie released in 1961, is the only film directed by Marlon Brando, who replaced the original director, Stanley Kubrick.
Brando also stars as the lead character, Rio. Other notable actors in the work include Karl Malden as Dad Longworth, Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado.
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[edit] Production
Rod Serling, already famed as the creator of The Twilight Zone series, wrote an adaptation of the novel The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones by Charles Neider (1956) - which was itself simply a novelization of the career of Billy the Kid relocated to Monterey, CA - at the request of producer Frank Rosenberg. The treatment was rejected and Rosenberg next hired Sam Peckinpah, who finished his first script on 11 November 1957. Marlon Brando's Pennebaker Productions had paid $40,000 for the rights to Authentic Death and then signed a contract with Stanley Kubrick to direct for Paramount Pictures. Peckinpah handed in a revised screenplay on 6 May 1959, and all was set.
It didn't stay all set. First, Kubrick didn't like the screenplay. Brando fired Peckinpah and hired Calder Willingham, but he and Brando stalled, so both Willingham and Kubrick were canned. Guy Trosper became the new screenwriter, who worked on the story with Brando, who hired himself as director.
The movie as it runs today has very little resemblance to the Neider novel, and what remains has much more resonance with history than fiction. At various times, the two credited screenwriters and the uncredited Peckinpah have claimed or had claimed for them a majority of the responsibility for the film, and Karl Malden has answered the query about who really wrote the story which became Jacks thus: "There is one answer to your question - Marlon Brando, a genius in our time."
[edit] Plot
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The springboard for this drama of betrayal and redemption is revealed in an early scene of two desperadoes fleeing across a Mexican desert pursued by Rurales due to and as a consequence of a bank robbery. The bandidos, played by Brando and Malden, begin to ascend a rise of ground, which allows the pursuers to close to within range of their weaponry, and Brando's horse falls.
What to do? Brando figures the Rurales will be "swarming all over us inside an hour." One partner might take the remaining pony and ride to a little jacalito down the canyon about five miles and return with fresh mounts. Okay, who rides? They shake for it, with Brando fixing the deal so his pal Karl goes for the gusto. Karl is in the corral down the canyon now, strapping the swag bag onto the fresh pony, and the air is slowly seeping out of his hurry. He casts one eye towards that point on the ridge sure to be taken by the Rurales, and with the other he gazes off in the opposite direction out past a low-lying treeline towards the border and safety. One way leads to danger and a poor chance at surviving with 1/2 the booty, the other towards a virtual certainty with all of it. After a decidedly short moment of reflection, he takes the latter.
From that point, Brando spends five years in a `steenkin' Sonorra prison,' which allows him to concentrate some powerful thought on his abandonment issues. When Brando reunites with his former partner in crime, Malden has become the Sheriff of Monterey, California. A bothered Malden finally gets the chance to "explain" why he left his friend back in Mexico but tries again to deceive Brando by lying about why he never returned. Brando was made aware of the real reason for the betrayal prior to going to prison, a fact that Malden doesn't know.
Brando plans a bank robbery in Monterey but his plans are somewhat sidetracked when he falls inlove with Malden's stepdaughter. In case you miss the Freudian implications, the name for the Karl character is "Dad" and Brando is "Kid."
Brando's character struggles throughout the film with his conflicting desires to marry the stepdaughter and kill her stepfather for revenge. At the point he decides to forget about revenge and leave with his new found love, he is falsely accused of bank robbery. He finds himself at the mercy of Malden who desperately wants to kill Rio in an attempt to absolve his own guilt over the earlier betrayal.
The Oedipal myth is altered slightly by Rio, the Kid, on locating Dad, taking up with the step-daughter rather than the wife, but the classic pattern is still there.
The film was Paramount Pictures' last feature released in VistaVision.
Cinematographer Charles Lang received an Academy Award nomination in the Best Cinematography, Color category that year.
It is presumed that the title refers to one-eyed jacks: the jacks in a deck of playing cards who are only showing one eye: the Jack of Hearts and the Jack of Spades. More than one of the principals has claimed to have supplied the title during a poker game on the set. These reports are slightly diminished by the name of the restaurant on the street of the jail where the Kid was held in the Neider novel: One-Eyed Charlie's.
At one point in the movie, Brando calls Malden "a one-eyed jack," a reference to seeing only one side of a person's personality or life. Brando is referring to Malden's reputation with the town's people as a straight laced, no nonsense Sheriff. A view Brando does not share. "To these people you're a one-eyed jack, but I've seen the other side of the card."
Marlon Brando shot 5 hours of additional footage that was later destroyed.
[edit] Copyright Expired
On copyright database, a copyright renewal for the film exists (RE-409-372 on 29 Dec 1988) meaning, under the current US copyright law, the film will not fall into public domain until 2055. But now, current copyright holder is unknown, therefore this film has been considered to be in public domain. In U.S. and Japan, various public domain DVDs are issued.
