One-Eyed Jacks, the only movie Marlon Brando ever directed, is an odd and beautiful bridging between Old Hollywood production values and New Hollywood acting sensibilities. Based on a novel that was a sort of riff on the Billy the Kid story it was originally scripted by Sam Peckinpah and to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, who had just finished
Spartacus. Only two weeks before shooting was to begin Kubrick abruptly left the project and for his self-imposed expatriation to England. Rather than work with anyone else Brando decided he had a vision for the picture and officially took over, re-working the script with Guy Trosper, and ultimately relying on some improvisation with the other actors. Shot partially on location in Monterey, California it has some stunning cinematography coupled with some psychologically intense performances, not just by Brando himself but by Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson, and Slim Pickens too, with colorful support from Elisha Cook Jr. and Timothy Carey, both veterans of earlier Kubrick pictures. Brando and Malden are partners who rob a Mexican bank, but Brando’s Rio gets left behind during the getaway. After finally getting out of prison he tracks the man who betrayed him, all the way up the coast where he is now installed as the town sheriff with a wife and adopted daughter. When Rio finds him, rather than immediately shoot it out they begin a tense game of trying to determine how much the other knows about the betrayal, and in the process Rio falls in love with the daughter (Pina Pellicer).
One-Eyed Jacks was on a dozen ballots with a third, a fifth, a sixth, two seventh, an eighth, and a ninth place.
After taking over fifty spots on the countdown to move from the introductory 35 points and get to 100, 200 is reached very quickly in only fifteen moves.
Clint Eastwood’s second film as a director (following
Play Misty for Me) and his first in the genre that made him a star,
High Plains Drifter is more akin to the Spaghettis in violence and style, though with an added seemingly supernatural element that makes the picture unique and unforgettable. The town of Lago, built wonderfully on the shores of Mono Lake, California, is burdened by a collective sin. That sin has brought an avenging angel in the form of a nameless figure (Eastwood) who rides in and pretty much takes the place over. The townspeople are on edge because three outlaws (Geoffrey Lewis, Anthony James, and Dan Vadis) who killed the previous sheriff are about to be released from prison. Desperately they turn to the menacing stranger for protection who instructs them to literally paint the town red as he renames it HELL. A weird and satisfying picture,
High Plains Drifter was on fifteen ballots including two tenth, two seventh, a sixth, two fifth, and a fourth place vote.
The Sons of Katie Elder, North to Alaska, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Shootist, Red River, The Cowboys,
El Dorado, True Grit, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Pale Rider, and High Plains Drifter
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