Reeling Backward: "One-Eyed Jacks" (1961)

I didn't think I'd like "One-Eyed Jacks." It was directed by Marlon Brando at the precipice of his acting career, right before he slid off into a decade-long fallow period revived only by "The Godfather" in 1972. He had never directed before, and never stepped behind the camera again. Usually, that sort of thing happens for a good reason.

All in all, it has the ingredients of an overstuffed vanity project, a la Kevin Costner's "The Postman."

Early on, the film's languid pace (2 hours and 20 minutes) and Brando's mush-mouthed delivery of lines seemed to confirm my suspicions. But soon the film won me over with its curious mix of Western mythology, revenge story and romance.

It's perhaps the actor's most distilled expression of his persona as a performer, a moody wash of resentment and pride. His gunslinger Rio is the apotheosis of Brando's young rebel roles, now grown a little older and more cautious. He's not always quite sure what he wants or what the right thing to do is, but whatever path he chooses Rio commits to with all-consuming passion.

In his late 30s, Brando was no longer the smoldering screen presence of the 1950s. His torso had started to thicken, his jawline soften, and if his hairline wasn't yet fleeing back across his head, it was at least looking for the exits.

Set in the dusty foothills of Baja California and then moving to the idyllic seaside town of Monterey, "One-Eyed Jacks" is about a friendship gone bad.

Rio and Dad Longworth (Karl Malden) are longtime roustabouts robbing banks and having a good time. Dad is considerably older, a veteran bandit who picked up Rio when he was a kid and taught him the ropes. Even though he's far surpassed him as a gunman, Rio still looks up to Dad, who's starting to lose a step.

In Brando's close-mouthed, Southern-fried vernacular, "Dad" comes out sounding like "Ndahd." The same can be said for the rest of Rio's speech, which Brando delivers like he's chewing over every syllable and reluctant to spit it out.

A heist goes bad, the lawmen have them pinned on a mountain peak with only one spent horse and a rifle between them, and Rio suggests one of them hightail it down to a little ranch they know about nearby, pick up a pair of fresh horses and save the day. They opt to leave it to chance to see who rides off with the gold while the other waits.

Rio suggests Dad pick which of his hands is holding the bullet, but rigs it by pulling a cartridge from his gun belt so Dad will be the one to ride. Why? Perhaps he figures the older, slower Dad deserves a break. Maybe Rio figures that Dad, lacking a hat or shoes from their hasty getaway, won't last in the broiling heat. Or maybe he just loves Dad and trusts him.

In any case, Dad gets a fresh horse and then flees with the gold, leaving Rio to be captured by the Federales. Before he's taken in, the posse stops by the ranch where Rio learns of Dad's betrayal.

Flash five years later. After busting out of the Sonora prison with a Mexican pal (Larry Duran), Rio begins searching for Dad to exact his revenge. Along the way he throws in with Bob Armory (Ben Johnson), a quietly malevolent sort who wants to knock over the fat bank in Monterey.

Turns out that's where Dad has gone to ground, reforming his ways and even being elected sheriff. He's also married a widow named Maria (Katy Jurado) with a teen daughter, Louisa.

She's played by Mexican actress Pina Pellicer, who had a short but memorable career kicked off by her performance in "One-Eyed Jacks." With her thin, sallow face and languid eyes, Pellicer had a dark, unconventional beauty for her era. She also managed to instill more depth and emotion in the dialogue than screenwriters Calder Willingham and Guy Trosper did. Sadly, she committed suicide three years later.

The genesis of the screenplay is a little fuzzy, with Willingham, Trosper, Stanley Kubrick and Brando himself all contributing drafts at various points. It's a very, very loose adaptation of the novel "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones" by Charles Neider.

It's at this point that the plot goes kind of sideways, but things get really interesting. Rio, Bob and their crew ride into town, but Rio peels off for a visit at Dad's place. Dad lies to him about the circumstances of his betrayal, and introduces him to his family, with an immediate spark between Rio and Louisa.

Now, this sounds like an exceptionally lousy way to go about robbing a bank. But Rio is less concerned about getting rich than getting even -- or, at the very least, getting satisfaction for being treated so shabbily by his best friend.

After a huge carnival party, which Rio uses as a cover to seduce Louisa and deflower her as a way to get back at Dad, the gunman realizes he doesn't really know what the wants. At various points Rio means to kill Dad, or run off with Louisa, but things don't quite work out.

After Rio kills a drunk in a fair fight, Dad uses the incident as an excuse to take revenge for Louisa. He beats Rio to a pulp, flays his back to shreds with a whip, and pulverizes his gun  hand with the butt of a rifle. Rio spends a couple months at a nearby fishing village healing up, with Bob and his partner growing increasingly frustrated. They signed on for a rich bank scheme, not a Shakespearean revenge drama.

Bob finally robs the bank without Rio, shooting a girl bystander and getting killed himself in the process, but Dad uses it as an excuse to hang Rio and rid himself of his troubles. Malden's steely, internal performance suggests that Dad doesn't really hate Rio, but he despises that his presence reminds Dad of his own failings.

Rio, for his own part, is incensed that Dad has managed to turn his life around as easily as flipping over a poker card. "You're a one-eyed jack around here, Dad. I seen the other side of your face," he accuses.

Also notable is Slim Pickens as Dad's jackal of a deputy, Lon, who has designs on Louisa. Pickens usually played bumbling, cartoonish characters, but he's chilling here.

Like other novice directors, Brando made the wise choice to hire a veteran cinematographer, Charles Lang, to handle the visual look of the picture. The result, nominated for an Oscar, has a scuffed-up kind of a beauty, vivid colors mixed with off-putting close-ups.

The most interesting thing to me about "One-Eyed Jacks" is that it relies more on the power of inference than overt depictions to demonstrate the internal workings of its characters, especially Rio and Dad. Rio is such a deviation from the classic Western protagonist, in that he's a man of action who often isn't sure how to act.

Six-shooter characters, even when they aren't supposed to be heroic, are often defined by their single-minded pursuit of a goal -- think John Wayne in "The Searchers." Rio is more akin to Brando's urban characters of the '50s, torn apart by misdirected passion and existential angst.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Darby's Rangers" (1958)

If I may suggest an alternate title for "Darby's Rangers," a 1958 alleged war film that marked the leading-man debut of James Garner, it would be "The Star-Crossed Love Lives of Darby's Rangers."

Never have I seen a military drama so done in by sex. It's not enough to say that romance is a recurring distraction in this film; it would be more accurate to describe the battle scenes as interrupting all the mush.

This insipid movie was directed by William Wellman, who made other, better war pictures, including the outstanding "Battleground." The film, written Guy Trosper from a book by James J. Altieri -- who served in the original Army commando troops dreamed up and led by William Darby -- purports to explore the inception, training and exploits of Darby's Rangers, who would form the basis of the glorious Army Rangers.

But almost from the start, the movie seems less concerned with the usual tropes about men of disparate backgrounds bonding during the cruel grinder of war than with the women they fall for. First, during training in England, it's a bunch of British lasses. Later, the love story moves to the Italian peninsula.

I have not read the book by Altieri, but based on its title -- "The Spearheaders" -- I seriously doubt it followed the amorous adventures of the Ranger battalions. I can only imagine his shock upon seeing his war memoir turned into a two-hour mash note.

There are really only two aspects of "Darby's Rangers" worth commenting on: The young cast, which contained a number of notable fresh faces, and a pair of combat scenes that show off Wellman's considerable ability with action and suspense.

Garner is best known as a television actor these days, but his film career was long and bright. He has a good, forceful presence as Darby, a man inexperienced in combat but who nonetheless had a clear vision of what this new model of soldier could do. At one point he angrily complains to a high-up general about his men being bogged down in foxholes in Italy -- not because he considers the duty beneath them, but because it's such a poor use of expert troops trained at guerrilla tactics.

Charlton Heston was originally slated to play Darby, but made exorbitant (for the time) demands for a share of the profits. Garner, then 30, had been cast as Sgt. Bishop, a smooth card shark from Reno, but was tapped for the lead role right before shooting started. Stuart Whitman, featured in last week's classic film column, slid into the Bishop part.

Jack Warden plays Darby's right-hand man, a Jewish master sergeant who also provides the film's laconic (and largely unnecessary) narration. Murray Hamilton, forever the obsequious mayor from "Jaws," also turns up in a small role as a Ranger who loves to get into scraps, and whose Irish accent comes and goes.

Edd Byrnes shows up halfway through the movie as a fresh-faced lieutenant who learns that doing things by the book isn't always the best way with the Rangers, who relish their status as dogface killing machines. He finds out just how much when he falls for an Italian girl (Etchika Choureau) and runs into all sorts of ridiculous complications, ending with a pregnancy and a desperate need for penicillin, which he can only obtain from the military dispensary by marrying her.

I know the Italians can be pretty traditional about marriage, but I'm pretty sure the bride has to be conscience when the wedding takes place.

Byrnes had just become a star playing Kookie, a character on the TV show "77 Sunset Strip," who was known for constantly combing his hair. Byrnes wears a lavishly-styled pompadour in "Darby's Rangers" that most military barbers, and even Donald Trump, would find excessive.

Whitman, as Bishop, has his own romance with an English bus attendant (Joan Elan) who turns out to be the daughter of a wealthy lord and lady. Bishop resents being roped in, including the girl's adamant declaration that they will marry one day, and skips out.

Peter Brown, playing young Private Rollo Burns, has his own U.K. romance with the 19-year-old daughter of his Scottish training sergeant. They get engaged just before he ships out.

In the most bizarre sequence, one Ranger recruit known as a Lothario seduces the wife of the British professor whose house he's temporarily billeted in. The marriage is broken up, the soldier dies in a training accident, and the wayward housewife gets a nasty comeuppance from the aforementioned Scottish sergeant.

Just when I was thinking "Darby's Rangers" was irredeemable, a couple of stellar combat scenes arrive late in the going. They're notable because the movie makes extensive use of stock footage from the war, so these are some of the few combat scenes that were actually shot for the movie.

One involves a line of Rangers ducking past a convoy of German Panzers. They wait until the tank is right upon them, then scurry past the looming treads, where the pilot can't see them. It's a riveting bit, as we keep expecting a misstep to result in a horrible death.

The other terrific sequence is a battle in the fog, with the Rangers trying to fight an enemy they can't even see. The fog is pea-soup-thick, and looks like it was poured down like a gray blanket from Olympus. The scene has an unnerving dream-like quality.

During the few minutes "Darby's Rangers" can spare from exploring the love lives of soldiers, it actually reminds us what a good war movie resembles.

1.5 stars out of four