One-Eyed Jacks

Dir. Marlon Brando, 1961. 141 mins. 35mm. With Marlon Brando, Pina Pellicer, Karl Malden, and Ben Johnson. A singular western, anticipating the revisionist agenda of the New Hollywood within the aesthetics of the studio era, “One-Eyed Jacks”was Marlon Brando’s first and only effort behind the camera, and an impressive one at that. Working against the sheer physical beauty of Monterey and Big Sur with a stellar cast from stalwarts Karl Malden and Ben Johnson to newcomer Pina Pellicer in a star-making turn, Brando put his own uniquely romantic stamp on the genre in spite of control freakish tendencies and clashes with the studio. In the Oedipal character of Rio, a bank robber seeking vengeance on his former partner (nicknamed ‘Dad’), Brando crafts his final statement on the neurotic loner he himself had helped invent. Followed by a book signing with William Man, author of The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando, published by HarperCollins.