One-Eyed Jacks, Marlon Brando’s solitary directorial film, stands apart from other Westerns of that era and has stood the test of time owing to its nuanced characterization and effective handling of themes like revenge and redemption.
After a successful bank heist in Senora, Mexico, in 1880, Dad Longsworth (Kurt Malden) flees with the loot and abandons his partner and protégé, Rio (Marlon Brando), who is apprehended by the Mexican Federales and imprisoned. Five years later, Rio flees from prison with his cellmate, Chico (Larry Duran), and is hellbent on exacting revenge on Dad, who had wronged him and left him to die. Rio joins forces with two other bandits, Bob Emory (Ben Johnson) and Harvey Johnson (Sam Gilman), and travels to Monterey, California, for a bank robbery job after learning that the town sheriff is Dad, who is now a family man with a stepdaughter named Louisa (Pina Pellicer). However, things become complicated when Rio and Louisa fall in love.
The film’s intriguing aspect is how the plot evolves depending on the characters’ actions in response to the situations before them. This is evident in Bob’s U-turn on Rio due to impatience, the accidental love Rio develops for Louisa that accounts for Rio’s character transformation, and Dad’s shift in attitude towards Rio motivated by his desire to erase everything from his past. This film distinguishes itself from its contemporaries by depicting characters who are complex and gray human beings rather than the stereotypical, one-note heroes and villains that characterized most of the genre’s predecessors. Take Rio’s example. He has spent his entire life as a bandit and knows nothing better; he is also a compulsive liar who lies to women about everything to get into bed with them (on their first meeting, he tells Louisa that he is a covert government agent). After Dad betrays him, the only purpose in his life is to get retribution because he has nothing else to live for. However, this perspective shifts once he develops feelings for Louisa, and his grounded and endearing love story with her allows him to prioritize her above all else. As a result, he now has something to live for, and vengeance ceases to be his primary impetus. The theme of revenge is expertly handled in this film, with love triumphing over vengeance—and justifiably so.
As a result of his metamorphosis, Rio becomes an even more lovable protagonist, and our empathy and support for him increase dramatically. This is reflected in the film’s final act when he is incarcerated, and his escape seems impossible. Yet, we desperately want him to break free and reunite with Louisa, leading to a nail-biting scene of him reaching for a gun in an attempt to flee the jail cell. Another example of a tense scene generated by clever characterization is Rio’s rendezvous with Dad after escaping jail. The sequence begins with them enjoying a drink and reminiscing, then moves on to Rio getting acquainted with Dad’s family, and ends with them eating dinner together. The filmmakers skillfully utilize Rio’s character’s wrath and desire for vengeance to build tremendous suspense throughout the sequence, making the audience constantly anticipate when Rio will carry out his plan to kill Dad.
In terms of performances, Marlon Brando does the same mumbly routine, which I am not a big fan of, and some of his physical movements while performing appear strange and off-putting. However, Karl Malden gives a commanding performance as a sheriff who controls the town, and his character is reminiscent of Gene Hackman’s in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1991). One-Eyed Jacks was riddled with production problems. Stanley Kubrick dropped out of the film just a week before production began, forcing Brando to take over as director. The shooting went over schedule, and the film went over budget because Brando shot six times the amount of footage generally used for a movie at the time, resulting in a five-hour-long first edit. To Brando’s displeasure, Paramount took over the film and re-edited it into a 141-minute version. Despite all these problems, if the end product is this near-perfect masterpiece, it establishes Brando as a very competent filmmaker, and you can’t help but wish he had directed more films.
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One-Eyed Jacks movie links: Letterboxd, IMDB
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