Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Blogs | Writers | Paid | My Orble | Login

Profiles, Trivia and Talking Crap - Old Movies

Orble

January 26th 2012 00:33
Hi Guys.

I've been writing for the Orble network since near the beginning. Lately I haven't been writing as much because I wasn't happy with the lack of quality control on Orble and (what I felt) were some rather dodgy practices.

Anyway, I'm extending an invitation for anyone interested in writing original content for a website I co-run called Duderocket.com. It's not paid work, but if you're interested in being a part of an Australian-based community that discusses film, music, television, politics, comedy and just about everything else, then come over and sign up to the Duderocket.com messageboard, or just shoot the Duderocket team an email outlining what you'd like to write for us.

Happy tidings and good luck all.
23
Vote
Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Marlon Brando - A Guide to his Film Roles (Part 2 - the 1960s)

February 6th 2010 12:26



Today I'll be following on from part 1 of my guide to Brando's films of the 50s with this personal tour of his 60s films. Part 1 can be read here. The 1960s were a patchy and troubled time for Brando, he had begun to make his name known in the film industry as a bit of a troublemaker and was finding it increasingly harder to get work. This resulted in him gravitating towards some quite strange films... and whilst it's pretty safe to say that the 60s contain at least two or three of the worst films he ever made, there is also some hidden gold that deserves to be rediscovered by any fledgling Brando fans out there.

Rio (One-Eyed Jacks)

One-Eyed Jacks (1961) Directed by Marlon Brando
This complex western took a lot of trouble to make, mostly due to Brando's turn as first-time director. Stanley Kubrick was originally set to direct but got in an argument with Brando over casting, and so Brando decided to step into the director's chair to make the movie he envisioned. The result is a slightly overlong but ultimately interesting revenge western about grey morality. At times it takes a lazy pace but it also prefigures the spaghetti western and the radicalisation of the western genre, with Brando cutting an intriguingly ambiguous figure as a lank-haired anti-hero to Karl Malden's genial, traitorous villain. Rio was initially meant to be Billy the Kid, with One-Eyed Jacks based on the novel The Death of Henry Jones, but Brando wasn't really interested in playing a straight-up villain. Instead he made the film into an epic saga of characters disguising their true natures (hence the title - 'one-eyed jack' is a reference to people only showing one side and one eye), with his re-written version of the lead character now a black-clad, single-minded force of vengeance who must choose between love and revenge. Brando's inexperience as a director (the original cut ran at something like 5 hours) and the studio's resulting post-production edit of his film (making the film more upbeat) led to a crushing artistic disappointment for the actor. He would never direct again, nor would he would ever again invest his integrity in a film role so completely.

Fletcher Christian (Mutiny on the Bounty)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) Directed by Lewis Milestone
As it was now the 1960s it was suddenly okay for actors to portray historical figures with authentically long hair. Brando copped some backlash amongst the critics at the time for his plummy British accent but he's actually quite good in this large scale retelling of the famous incident. He resists the film's attempts to carve him into a standard Hollywood hero by resolutely playing Christian as a foppish dandy whose charm and class seems to prohibit him from getting his hands dirty in any whatsoever. Of course, events eventually conspire to force Christian's hand to action and Brando plunges the character into a realistically black fugue as a result. The ending of this version of Mutiny on the Bounty is nothing short of nonsense but Brando is fairly entertaining throughout and the film itself is quite a spectacular historical adventure. He loved the Tahitian location and people so much that he purchased a small island in the area, and built a private hotel there.

Harrison Carter McWhite (The Ugly American)

The Ugly American (1963) Directed by George Englund
Another one of Brando's 'message' films, this one deals with American foreign policy in a fictional South-East Asian country (ala Vietnam and Cambodia). Brando plays a U.S. Ambassador seeking to improve the lot of the Sarkhenese through the construction of a 'freedom' highway. The film is loosely based on a book of the same name, with the idea being that the imposition of American ideals on other countries can do just as much damage as the communist ideals the U.S. opposes. MacWhite is shown to be a misguided idealist who very much believes in what he's doing, a naive character who doesn't really learn until it's too late. It's a fairly flawed film, with too much sermonizing (both for and against) and lots of scenes with Brando projecting his inner turmoil over what this poor country is going through. Brando very much had a big hand in getting this film made, he personally chose Japanese actor Eiji Okada (in the only English-speaking role of his career) as his co-star, and Brando's sister Joceyln also co-stars as a nurse. Unfortunately, the film apparently deviates a fair bit from the very famous book it's based on, and as a result it's largely considered a failure.

Freddy Benson (Bedtime Story)

Bedtime Story (1964) Directed by Ralph Levy
Brando returns to comedy in a bold, poor-taste tale of rival conmen in the french riviera. He plays a small-time con-artist quietly discharged from the army after seducing one woman too many and finds himself let loose on Europe like a kid in a candy store. He wanders into the playground of a big-time operator portrayed by David Niven and soon the two are competing for the attentions of a rich tourist, embroiled in an escalating game of outlandish lies and schemes. Bedtime Story is a fairly amusing comedy that thankfully resists sugarcoating it's subject matter, but the weakest link is easily Brando. He doesn't seem able to take his role all that seriously, continuously trying to fight the smirk off his face because he's just too amused by it all. There's a few small moments where he manages to be quite funny but overall it's Niven who steals the show as the older, classier con artist. Freddy is a rather cocky character so he's not even really all that likeable, with Brando playing him as a crude lowlife who thinks a little too highly of himself. A large portion of the film sees Brando's character faking a debilitating mental condition that leaves him bound to a wheelchair... it's a far cry from his serious and critically acclaimed work in The Men, and it's interesting to see Brando play the same material for laughs. Bedtime Story isn't very well-known these days, it was remade more famously as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in the late 80s, which is easily as good if not better. Brando was fully aware of his shortcomings as a comic actor and he would rarely do an out-and-out comedy like this ever again, but he also later said that this was the only film he ever truly enjoyed making and that he found David Niven absolutely hilarious.

Robert Crain (Morituri)

Morituri (1965) Directed by Bernhard Wicki
This was the last black and white film Brando made, and aside from a few mentions of rape and Jewishness it feels fairly dated too. Brando plays a WW2-era German for the second and last time, once again employing a spot-on German accent and doing his best serious routine. His character is a German traitor waiting out the war in India who gets blackmailed into working for the British as a spy onboard a German ship. The resulting film is a fairly run of the mill war thriller, with a non-German accented Yul Brynner playing the strangely heroic captain of the ship. Brando isn't really all that interesting in this, the movie looks cool and atmospheric but not all that much happens and Brando stays firmly in brooding, introspective mode for the bulk of the duration.

Sheriff Calder (The Chase)

The Chase (1966) Directed by Arthur Penn
A fairly decent and very 60s satire-drama about smalltown ignorance and lynchmob mentality getting the better of the law. Brando plays the resolute but worldweary sheriff who must do his best to protect a prisoner (a young Robert Redford) from self-righteously ugly townspeople hellbent on mutiny. In true Brando tradition, he takes one hell of a beating in order to symbolise the struggle of those who must uphold what's right. He's actually a lot better here than he was in his last few films, employing a suitably southern accent and demonstrating a sense of wryness and familiarity in the earlier scenes where the Sheriff patrols his constituents, and also boiling up at the unfairness of his situation with a sense of dignity befitting his profession. It's also worth noting that this is probably the point where Brando first starts showing signs of ageing, he looks heavier in this film than he does in any film before it and sports greying hair, but it also suits his character and doesn't distract in the way it does in some of his later movies where his weight balloons much more noticeably.

Matt Fletcher (The Appaloosa)

The Appaloosa (1966) Directed by Sidney J. Furie
This is a fairly B-grade western of no real pretensions and is hence fairly enjoyable in a pseudo-spaghetti western kind of way. Brando spends some of the film looking rather shabby and unkempt, liked a bearded hobo of the desert, before smartening himself up and embarking on his revenge quest to liberate his stolen horse from some dirty steenkin Mexican badguys. The head of these villains is played by John Saxon, an actor best described as a low rent cross between Burt Reynolds and Al Lettieri, and there's a few good scenes where he and Brando square off against each other - not the least of these is a bizarre arm-wrestling competition where the loser gets his hand pushed into the territory of a deadly scorpion! For most of the film Brando isn't really required to put too much effort in... during some of his revenge quest he goes undercover as a Mexican and employs an over-the-top Mexican accent, and it's about a million miles away from his more subtle work 14 years earlier in Viva Zapata, suggesting that he didn't really treat this role all that seriously.

Ogden Mears (A Countess From Hong Kong)

A Countess From Hong Kong (1967) Directed by Charles Chaplin
Even the disallusioned Brando couldn't pass up the opportunity to work with a screen legend like Charlie Chaplin. Here he appears in Chaplin's last film as a stuffy, well-to-do diplomat who shelters a stowaway (Sophia Loren) onboard on an ocean liner. Brando wasn't keen to do another comedy but the presence of Chaplin was the dealbreaker, though Brando would come to regret every minute of the film due to Chaplin's mean-spirited and generally disagreeable nature. The film itself is a lifeless and turgid farce... Brando plays a figure more than a little remniscent of Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, and seems less than happy to be on the screen. You can practically see him gritting his teeth just to get through it, and A Countess From Hong Kong probably remains his worst film simply due to the fact that it's hideously boring and completely without interest.

Maj. Weldon Penderton (Reflections in a Golden Eye)

Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) Directed by John Huston
This is one of the stranger and more risky dramas to come out of the radical 60s. Liz Taylor plays the rather loose and frustrated army wife of an army professor (Brando) on a military base. A young private (Robert Forster, in his film debut) has a voyeuristic obsession with Taylor's character, but is also unaware that he is the secret object of desire of Brando's character, a closeted and self-loathing homosexual, which places the three characters in a rather twisted and ultimately doomed love triangle. Brando's willingness to play an obviously gay character like Weldon shows just how ahead of his time he truly was, and proved that he was still leagues ahead of his contemporaries. He affects an authentic-sounding southern accent and takes on a dour disposition for most of the film, cracking his exterior in a few riveting key scenes to reveal the depth of confusion and pain underneath... the most memorable of these would have to be the infamous horse-whipping scene, featuring a flood of raw emotion on Brando's part that is only matched by his later Oscar-nominated work in Last Tango in Paris. The film isn't the masterpiece some fans claim it to be, but it stands the test of time as a highly interesting porthole into the changing attitudes of the era and remains a must-see film due to the level of commitment offered by both the cast and the director. This film marks the beginning of Brando's return to glory... a five year stretch of inspired performances (with one or two glaring exceptions) that would culminate in his second Oscar win.

Grindl (Candy)

Candy (1968) Directed by Christian Marquand
There's just something grotesquely hynoptic about the very idea of Marlon Brando playing an Indian Guru proficient in the art of the Kama Sutra. It might've been the worst role he ever played if he wasn't so obviously aware of how ridiculous it all is. As he's patently in on the joke it simply remains bizarre and mildly amusing. The film itself is very much a product of it's time, a 60s sex comedy that plays as a pastiche on 60s pop culture, but aside from the various celebrity cameos it's a fairly dull and dated affair that manages to wear out it's welcome very quickly. Brando's thick Indian accent, boot-polish skin and unruly black wig would've been offensive if his character wasn't so obviously a charlatan... he rides around in a makeshift Guru-den in the back of a truck and spouts all manner of half-arsed spiritual nonsense in order to get the lead character to have sex with him multiple times. The scene is mildly amusing at first but it goes on for far too long (like the movie itself). Brando agreed to appear in the film as a favour to the director, who he was friends with.

The Chauffeur (The Night of the Following Day)

The Night of the Following Day (1968) Directed by Hubert Cornfield
A rather pointless and vaguely arty thriller that seems to think it's clever, this one features Brando as part of a gang who kidnap the daughter of a diplomat and hold her to ransom. His character is the one in the gang who has pangs of conscience when things start to go a bit awry, though most of the film sees him having to contend with his drug-addicted girlfriend. Brando looks surprisingly fit and young here in comparison to his roles in Reflections in a Golden Eye and The Chase, and this is pretty much the last film in which he looks lean and in-shape... from here on in it would a steady decline towards morbid obesity. A lot of Brando's angry scenes in this film call to mind his work as young rebellious characters in The Wild One and The Fugitive Kind, though it's pretty clear that he only did this film for the money. The Night of the Following Day is every bit as dumb as it's title, and Brando spends most of the film looking snazzy and Eurotrash in a black skivvy and a blond Andy Warhol wig. When he discovered that the film was a real piece of crap he started making things difficult for the director, including refusing to smile for the film's final scene (the director ended up having to use a still shot instead). It's a stupid ending that doesn't make any sense anyway, so Brando was right to act so disaparagingly.

Sir William Walker (Burn!)

Burn! (1969) Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
Also known as Quiemada. This is probably my absolute favourite Brando role, and is also a criminally underrated film. Brando plays Sir William Walker, a 18th century British spy and professional rabble-rouser. He is sent to the Portuguese-held Caribbean island of Queimada by the British to foment revolution, and is later financially-motivated to return ten years later to put down the subsequent slave-led revolution. Brando plays Sir William as a dashing master-spy and all-round cad, employing the same foppish accent he used in Mutiny on the Bounty and carrying a sophisticated implication of depravity that comes to the fore when the character eventually falls on hard times due to alcoholism and gambling problems. Brando is a delight throughout, shining whenever Sir William manipulates his prey and displaying an alarmingly believable sense of ammorality. Burn! also happens to be a very interesting film with a strong, uncompromised vision of filibusting and the political agendas involved. At this point Brando was increasingly finding himself offered less work in Hollywood, which led to him working with European directors such as Pontecorvo (most famous for The Battle of Algiers). Brando and Pontecorvo had increasingly volatile disagreements throughout the making of Burn!... Brando was upset by the director's ill treatment of the extras (played by local islanders) and the two men took to threatening each other with weapons (Brando had a rather large knife, Pontecorvo started carrying a gun). Despite this, Brando never lost respect for Pontecorvo's talent and often cited this film as amongst the best he ever made.

Stayed tuned for Part 3 - the 1970s and 1980s.
Special thanks to www.doctormacro.info for some of the photos!
57
Vote
Comments (2)Comments (2) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Marlon Brando: A Guide to his Film Roles (Part 1 - the 1950s)

January 20th 2010 12:00

Here is the first part of the most complete possible guide I could write of Brando's filmed output. I think the only acting credits I've missed are Brando's 1949 debut in a half hour episode of the now-lost TV series Actor's Studio (footage from this show has been missing for decades so it's unlikely I'll ever see it) and an appearance in a 1950 TV show called Come Out Fighting (which isn't even listed on IMDB.com in any way, shape or form, so it's unlikely I'll ever get to see that either). I've been working towards writing this guide for a while and now that I've seen all 43 of his existing screen credits I can share my thoughts on his career.

Ken
Ken (The Men)

The Men (1950) Directed by Fred Zinneman
This is one of those rather earnest 1950s social conscience films. Brando had already made a name for himself as an energetic and groundbreaking theatre actor in plays such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Candida and A Flag is Born, so he had his pick of film roles when Hollywood came calling. He chose this movie out of a whole bunch because he thought the script was very well-written. In The Men he plays Ken, a young WWII soldier struck down in the prime of his life by a bullet to the spine. The Men follows his journey from hopeless bedcase to an independent life in a wheelchair... Brando is absolutely electrifying, he's so realistic and seperate to the acting conventions of the time that he pop-rivets your eyeballs to the screen. As Brando was unknown at the time of filming he was able to to check in to a Californian hospital and pretend to be an actual paraplegic... for three weeks he co-inhabited with real, crippled war veterans and studied their attitudes, learning foremost that they despised pity, and so he brought this to the film as his central motivation when performing the script. Ken is an angry young man who borders on suicidal, and Brando plays his arc in an unpredictable but wholly believable fashion.

Stan
Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Directed by Elia Kazan
This is the movie that catapaulted Brando into fame and fortune, and got him his first Academy Award nomination. For many people it remains the quintessential classic Brando role, and by this point Brando himself was happy enough with the filmmaking (and the money attached to it) to turn his back on the theatre for good. Stanley Kowalski is written as a sweat-dripping, callously masculine brute and Brando was certainly not what playwright Tennessee Williams had in mind when creating the role. I've read that Anthony Quinn's less ambiguous and more animalistic take on the role in the theatre was closer to what the text required, but no one could ever argue that Brando didn't make film history when he sauntered into the frame as Stanley - a complexly sensitive take on a dominating and primal force of nature. Brando's work in this role was a reflection of the complicated nature of people and key to his own philosophy on acting (a philosophy that would remain through all his performances, no matter how little he seemed to care in the later years) - that people are neither inherently good or evil, and that even the most villainous role should be tempered by a realistic helping of humanity. Brando's performance as Stanley isn't a sympathetic role by any stretch of the imagination, but his every appearance attracts the viewer like a moth to a candle, and is rightly deserving of it's place in the history of screen acting. He manages to remain true to the character's innate violence and misogyny whilst displaying an unexpected sensitivity that goes some way towards explaining Stella's sexual attraction to her monstrous and controlling husband. Brando and controversial director Elia Kazan would work together on two more films.

Emiliano Zapata (Viva Zapata!)

Viva Zapata! (1952) Directed by Elia Kazan
Now that Brando had an Oscar nomination under his belt he probably felt a bit more comfortable with branching out and displaying his diversity as an actor. Viva Zapata! was a pet project of Elia Kazan and was written by celebrated novelist John Steinbeck, and Brando agreed to jump on board as a favour to Kazan. He gives a rather dignified and unshowy performance despite the ethnic prosphetics and makeup he wears (apparently they put things in his nostrils to make them wider), and he affects a light Mexican accent (light enough to convince in the role, but not so heavy as to invite ridicule). Brando got his second Oscar nomination for his work as the revolutionary hero Zapata, though it was his co-star Anthony Quinn who won for Best Supporting Actor as the brother of his character. Brando had little care for the business side of acting at this point, so when he signed on to play Zapata he was only dimly aware of actually signing a two-picture contract with the Studio. Brando delighted in making the studio man sweat by signing in disappearing ink, but it would eventually be the Studio who had the last laugh in this case (see entry for Desiree).

Marc Antony (Julius Caesar)

Julius Caesar (1953) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Brando didn't think much of his work in this film, later believing himself to be too inexperienced and uncultured to have done Shakespeare alongside people like John Gielgud and James Mason. However, it's not an opinion many people shared as he still managed to get himself a third consecutive Best Actor Oscar nomination for his heartfelt portrayal of the loyal Marc Antony. It's not really the lead role in the film, most of Brando's performance is focused into the famous "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech, but he delivers his lines so naturalistically that he doesn't feel out of place at all. It's easy to see why people took notice - up until this point a lot of film reviewers had been critical of Brando's style of speaking in film, not seeming to grasp that the mumbling was supposed to convey a style of speech more in tune with the real world - so when he tackled Shakespeare and managed to do it both eloquently and unaffectedly, it proved to many of the naysayers that Brando was capable of a more oratory style, it was just that he chose (for the most part) to reject it in favour of sounding like a real person when he acted.

Johnny (The Wild One)

The Wild One (1953) Directed by Laslo Benedek
Whilst this probably remains one of Brando's most iconic roles, the film itself hasn't really aged all that well and a lot of it comes across as quite cheesy now. The Wild One is very much a product of the 1950s, tapping into a social hysteria related to motorcycle gangs with a message that seeks to villify the biker subculture without alienating the film's youthful target audience. As a result it's neither really here nor there, and seems a bit over the top. Brando does a good job of embodying the anti-authoritarian streak in his character and kind of turns Johnny into an anti-hero for the times (as opposed to the figure of warning the film probably aimed for him to be). His lazy-sounding delivery of rebellious dialogue (lines that would've been shouted and wrung out for all they're worth if put in the hands of a less innovative talent) seals this characterisation as one that he would forever be associated with, right down the line to films like The Fugitive Kind and The Night of the Following Day.

Terry Molloy (On the Waterfront)

On The Waterfront (1954) Directed by Elia Kazan
This is the film that cemented Brando's immortality as a screen legend and won him his first Best Actor Oscar (incidentally, Brando later lost the trophy only for it to turn up at an auction in London. The auctioner claimed that Brando had given it to them as a present). He plays Terry Molloy, a rather dim dockworker who threw away a career as a successful boxer when he agreed to take a dive on the advice of his brother Charlie (Rod Steiger). Brando gives a realistically mannered performance with roughened, slightly punch-drunk speech, working class body language, and a scar across his right eyebrow. A lot of the idealogy behind the performance was a direct line of justification on behalf of director Kazan, who had recently sold out his colleagues to the House of UnAmerican Activities - so with this in mind some of the film's themes might rub you up the wrong way, though Brando cuts through this politicising by making things as simple as possible and playing Molloy as simply a broken failure who takes a chance to reclaim some dignity and respect. The part of Terry Molloy was actually written for John Garfield originally but he died before the film could be made. Kazan wanted Frank Sinatra for the part after that, and also courted Montgomery Clift, but due to Brando's recent box office and critical successes the studio used it's clout to get Kazan to bring Brando on board instead. On The Waterfront has a memorable final scene where Brando gets the absolute crap smacked out of him - starting the great Brando tradition of copping a beating (see also The Chase and One Eyed Jacks).

Napoleon Bonaparte (Desiree)

Desiree (1954) Directed by Henry Koster
Brando was strongarmed into doing this film as part of the two-picture deal he signed for Viva Zapata! He was originally asked to do a film called The Egyptian (a sword and sandals epic set in Ancient Egypt) but flat out refused, and ended up doing Desiree as a compromise. The film is based on a popular novel about Napoleon's first fiance, Desiree, who goes on to become a lady of his court. Brando's role is a leading one, but it's viewed through the eyes of Desiree so a good deal of interesting stuff about Napoleon gets left out in favour of more trivial politics involving his right hand General and his sisters. As a result it's a fairly mediocre movie, though Brando does the best he can with what he's got. He very much looks the business but wisely doesn't attempt a french accent, instead opting to adopt a clipped neutral-ish British tone in order to fit in with the rest of the cast. He has a few great scenes where he acts out Napoleon's frustrations and indignance but aside from this it's a pretty dull movie. The very idea of Brando playing Napoleon should've made for cinematic gold... the fact that it doesn't pan out that way should tell you something about the quality of this movie.

Sky Masterson (Guys and Dolls)

Guys and Dolls (1955) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Brando's first foray into light comedy territory comes in the shape of Sky Masterson, a no good gangster and gambler who accepts the challenge of warming up a rather frosty missionary (who in turn is intent on ridding him of sin). Brando was admittedly not much of a singer but opted to do Guys and Dolls instead of a fourth Elia Kazan movie, East of Eden (Brando's part in that film went to James Dean instead), presumably because it made a break from all the more dramatic roles he had become associated with. Brando's singing was so bad that he had to record the songs over and over again, enough times so that the sound engineers could cut and paste various notes and words into the shapes of the songs, and then Brando would lip synch the words whilst filming. Brando's singing co-star, Frank Sinatra, was reputedly quite unhappy to be playing second fiddle to Brando in a musical. Our man Marlon's performance isn't too bad, his smirking and bemusement is pretty much what the role requires, though this inability to take comedy seriously enough is what will drag down the majority of his future performances in the genre. A piece of trivia: Brando almost never attended the premieres of the films he starred in, but producer Sam Goldwyn gave the actor a new car in order to convince him to break this rule just once for Guys and Dolls.

Sakini (Teahouse of the August Moon)

Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) Directed by Daniel Mann
Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) Directed by Daniel Mann
Brando fans haven't seen it all until they've seen him play a wiley Japanese interpreter, complete with Okinawan accent, coal black hair and fake slanted eyes. His ethnic make-up is actually quite convincing (as you can see above) but unfortunately he never quite convinces amongst his genuine Japanese co-stars due to his height. Brando does all he can to keep his body hunched or short, often projecting deference to his white employer (Glen Ford) whilst slyly leading him up the merry path. As a character, Sakini is pure comedy - Brando isn't required to give his role any real dramatic weight, and so once again he gets away with smirking his way through. Some modern viewers will no doubt be offended with the idea of Marlon Brando playing an asian, but it does remain an inoffensive characterisation that suggests intelligence and good humour, and Brando does his best to play the ethnicity of the character without descending into ugly stereotyping (unlike, say, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's).

Major Lloyd "Ace

Sayonara (1957) Directed by Joshua Logan
Keeping on the Japanese theme, in Sayonara our actor plays an airforce Major in recovering post-war Japan who finds himself smitten (despite his own cultural beliefs) with a popular Japanese stage performer. Brando adopts a southern accent, calling to mind the 'good old boy' network of the military and marking him out as at odds with the rest of the cast. His character starts out the film as an easygoing yet firm objector to interracial relationships, and alongside this character the audience comes to see the wrongness of this stance as we're taken inside a grand soap opera of tragedy and hope, loosely based on the experiences of real life American military personnel. Brando actually took on this film on the proviso that he could change the ending to a more hopeful one, marking the start of his trend towards films that reflect a positive social message. He got his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination for it.

Lt. Christian Dietsl

The Young Lions (1958) Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Brando as a Nazi! This is a sprawling war drama, co-starring Dean Martin and Montgomery Clif, that tells the disparate stories of two Americans and one German in WWII. Both Martin and Clift were in the throws of escalating alcoholism at the time, so Brando pretty much steals the movie by default as a result. He employs a realistic German accent, sports shockingly blond hair and plays Diestl as an impassioned and tragic idealist who becomes increasingly disallusioned with Hitler's propaganda as the film progresses. There's actually something very annoying about watching Brando playing a Nazi whilst insisting to do it as the hero of the movie... by this point he had it in his contracts that he had the right to exercise creative control on his film projects, so (much to the chagrin of the director and writer) he changed his character from a typically evil Nazi to something a bit more reflective of reality and less demonising. Whilst it's commendable that Brando gives us a lone 'good' Nazi, it's also quite boring, vain, and ultimately irritating, especially when you consider how awesome it might've been to see Brando play someone more typical of Hitler's regime.

Valentine "Snakeskin

The Fugitive Kind (1959) Directed by Sidney Lumet
Brando plays second fiddle to Italian actress Anna Magnani in this rather stale adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play. His performance is very much a sullen and inobtrusive rehash of his casually rebellious work in The Wild One, and for a great deal of the film he's pretty much just there as material for Magnani's character to work around. He also never once plays his guitar despite carrying it around for a good portion of the movie. The only real highlight of his performance is the opening pre-titles sequence in which Valentine is put on trial for causing mischief at a bar, a lively monologue (written specially for the film) that gives more insight into the character than the entire rest of the film. Brando became the first actor to be paid $1 million for a movie role when he agreed to be in The Fugitive Kind, and there was some tension between himself and Magnani due to his unwillingness to sleep with the older actress. Magnani also couldn't speak English and had learnt all her lines phonetically, which made it difficult for her to pick up her cues when Brando improvised or downplayed his dialogue. As a result the film falls kind of flat.

Stayed tuned for Part 2 - the 1960s.
Special thanks to www.doctormacro.info for some of the photos!

54
Vote
Comments (3)Comments (3) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Top 101 Movies of the Decade Part 2

January 5th 2010 06:44


Napoleon Dynamite
[ Click here to read more ]
55
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Top 101 Movies of the Decade Part 1

January 5th 2010 06:43
I initially resisted the idea of doing one of these 'Best of' lists, simply because it felt too hard to settle on an arbitary number and nominate the best films from the last ten years, let alone rank them. I worry that I've forgotten some that should've made the list, and I also worry about the films I haven't seen yet and whether they might be more deserving of a place. I also worry about the predominance of American and other English-speaking films... I do try to watch as many 'foreign' language films as possible, but they don't always find their way to me as quickly and often as American films. So with all this in mind (and mentioned as fast as possible so I can start with a clean slate and just get on with it) here are my Top 101 films from the last decade (2000-2009). And no, they aren't really in any order other than alphabetical.


[ Click here to read more ]
57
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (4)Comments (4) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


I'm back

December 25th 2009 12:19
I let my mate Stu Kicks have the run of this blog for the last couple of years as I was off doing other things like harpooning baby seals and whaling and stuff like that. Anyway, Stu has decided to retire for a while as he considered himself to have conquered the movie reviewing world and figured he should retire while he was "Number 1 champion". His words, not mine.

I've actually been busy on a non-Orble orientated blog in the meantime, but I thought I would come back here and post a few reviews because, well, it doesn't hurt does it? Plus I would really hate for oldmovies.net.au to get raped in the way my other old orble blogs did. I'm not bitter or anything, but it would've been nice to have been asked before having my book reviewing blog taken away and given to someone who seems more preoccupied with advertising online clothing stores than actually reviewing literature


[ Click here to read more ]
35
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (3)Comments (3) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Classic B-movie titles

January 8th 2009 08:11
Classic Batman movie title screen
Here's a gallery of classic title cards from old B-movies like "Batman" and "The Abominable Snowman". It might seem like a dull gallery of images to look through, but some of the titles really stand out.

The title for "Alphaville" is so dull that you'd never imagine watching it, but then you'd be missing out on one of Godard's really tremendous works, a sci-fi movie that looks so terribly camp, but is actually frightening in its execution


[ Click here to read more ]
76
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (1)Comments (1) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Movie Poster Anagrams

December 16th 2008 06:32
National Treasure phtoshop mock poster
An excellent idea at Worth1000 - photoshop movie posters to make anagrams of the names!

isplay=photoshop" target="_blank">Click here to see the mockup posters!
[ Click here to read more ]
66
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (3)Comments (3) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Stu Kicks responds to the critics

June 5th 2008 02:17
sup y'all. it has come to my attention that some playas out there arent digging this blog. well listen up fools... stu kicks caters for no haters. you know what im saying?

lets look at some of these comments up close


[ Click here to read more ]
92
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (4)Comments (4) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


the 10 WORST actors EVER

June 2nd 2008 11:23
yo listen up today i am gonna do somethig a little different to help mix it up for all you know nothings. this is what i call a TOP 10 only they aint gonna be TOP they are gonna be the absolute WORST actors EVER to be on a tv. some people will start there lists by saying that its there opinion but im gonna lay it down for you now and say that this isnt an opinion this is the GOSPEL according to ME: IE. the truth. so pay attention and you might lern somethin.

david duchovnee

[ Click here to read more ]
141
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (48)Comments (48) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Okeydokes

April 23rd 2008 11:55
I realise I haven't been doing much on this blog lately. I have a friend interested in taking Old Movies.net.au for a spin, so maybe I'll let him post in it for a while. Just thought I better post something about it so people don't think it's me! (especially as he has appalling taste in movies)

I'll probably be back at some point but life has been cuntish lately so breaths shouldn't be held.
119
Vote
Comments (3)Comments (3) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


How did R2-D2 get his name?

January 22nd 2008 13:33
We've loved it from the instant we heard it. The name of the little garbage can robot, R2-D2, has been murmured at hundreds of moments in my life, since I was a little little kid.

Where did ol' George come up with the name


[ Click here to read more ]
172
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


The Waiting Game

November 16th 2007 10:33
axl
"It's all about hatin' the fans yo!"


Here is a brief list of things the fans have been waiting for for far too long. As I'm feeling charitable I'm simply call this 'The Waiting Game'... if I was feeling less than charitable, I'd call it 'Failing to Deliver'. These aren't just movies either


[ Click here to read more ]
62
Vote
Read MoreRead More Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Comic Book Movies - I've had enough

October 22nd 2007 13:21
fantastic 4
Fantastic Four... more like Fantastic BORE


I'm finding myself becoming increasingly bored with the Marvel Movie Miracle Machine and all it's ilk. Prior to the late 90s, the only big 'comic book' films had been the flagship Superman franchise and the sporadic Batman series. Then the rise of the Internetz happened and the rapid conglomeration of nerds and geeks worldwide alerted filmmakers to the existence of a previously silent majority who had been pining away in their rooms waiting for the silicon revolution to happen. And yay, the Internetz gave them voice, and they did start their piteous moaning and fanboy gushiness. And dollars glittered in the eyes of the Executive Producers


[ Click here to read more ]
104
Vote
Read MoreRead More Comments (12)Comments (12) Add CommentsAdd Comments
[ Link ]
   


Next Page (15-28)



[ Old Movies Home ] [ Create A New Post ]
Moderated by Luke
Copyright © 2012 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]