One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
★★½ — One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
There are films that slip through the cracks of cinema history without much fanfare, and then there are films that slip through because the circumstances of their making were so chaotic, so personally fraught, that the industry never quite knew what to do with them. One-Eyed Jacks (1961) sits firmly in that second category. Produced through Marlon Brando's own Pennebaker Productions, the film tells the story of Rio, a bank robber betrayed by his partner Dad Longworth and left to rot in a Mexican prison, who escapes years later with revenge on his mind. By the time he tracks Dad down, the man has reinvented himself as a respectable California sheriff, a pillar of the community with plenty to lose. It is a Western built on betrayal, wounded pride and the slow burn of grudges left to fester, and it sits comfortably alongside other morally textured entries in the genre such as Ride Lonesome and Rio Bravo, both from the same period.
What makes One-Eyed Jacks a genuine curiosity, though, is the production story behind it. Brando took over the director's chair after Stanley Kubrick departed the project early on, making this the one and only film Brando would ever direct. The shoot was famously drawn out and expensive, with Brando's perfectionist tendencies resulting in enormous quantities of footage that the studio, Paramount (distributing for Pennebaker Productions), eventually trimmed down from a much longer cut. At 141 minutes, what reached audiences was already a considerable length for a Western of the era, and the sense of something larger lurking beneath the surface has followed the film ever since. The Monterey coastline photography gives the film a look quite unlike most of its contemporaries, polished but unremarkable in places, yet genuinely striking in others.
The cast assembled here is worth pausing on. Karl Malden plays Dad Longworth with the kind of controlled, unsettling charm that makes the character's double life feel entirely plausible. Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens fill out the supporting roles with the sort of weathered credibility that good Westerns depend on. And then, of course, there is Brando himself in the lead, an actor whose later work in films such as The Godfather would define a generation's idea of screen presence. Here he is younger, more physical, bringing that characteristic intensity to a character who simmers for much of the running time before finally boiling over.
You can tell this influenced so many Westerns that came after. One Eyed Jacks was the only film directed by Marlon Brando. The acting, being Marlon Brando, was predictably captivating. Pretty much the entire cast was really great in their roles. Where it's let down is the bloated script. You could have removed an hour from that film and it'd have flowed so much better. Solid story, great soundtrack, great acting, so many segments that later films would copy but here I am struggling to rate this higher than 3.5*
I keep coming back to that tension between the film's genuine strengths and the weight it carries around. The score, the performances, those images of the California coast, they all do their job well enough that you can see exactly why the film left a mark. But sitting through stretches that could have been tightened without losing anything of substance is a real test of patience, and I think my rating reflects that honestly. It is the kind of film you are glad exists, glad you have seen, and maybe not in a hurry to revisit in full. A fascinating misfire, as someone once probably said about far worse films.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1961 | Watched: 2025-04-20
Trailer
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Related on Movies With Macca
More with Marlon Brando: The Godfather (1972)
More from the 1960s: Viy (1967) · Persona (1966) · Carnival of Souls (1962) · Daisies (1966)
More western: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) · Rio Bravo (1959) · Ride Lonesome (1959) · The Great Train Robbery (1903)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
