One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
★★½ — One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Marlon Brando directed exactly one film in his career, and this is it. Originally Stanley Kubrick was attached to direct, but after disagreements with Brando he walked away, leaving the star to take the reins himself. What followed was a notoriously prolonged shoot, with Brando famously spending months filming on the Monterey coastline while the budget ballooned to around six million dollars (enormous for a Western of the period), and the studio eventually wrestling the edit away from him, cutting his preferred five-hour cut down to the two hours and twenty minutes released. Adapted loosely from Charles Neider's 1956 novel "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones", the film was produced through Brando's own Pennebaker Productions and released by Paramount, returning only around four million dollars at the box office.
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*
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1961 | Watched: 2025-04-20
Where to watch (UK)
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Cultpix · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Amazon Video · MovieMe
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Physical: Amazon UK
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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)
