Reeling Backward: "Broken Lance" (1954)

Here's a description I found of Jerome Weidman's 1941 novel, "I'll Never Go There Anymore," unread by me:

This semi-classic Weidman novel places a handful of vibrant characters together for a two week stay at a lonely summer cabin. "A summer vacation thrust him into manhood."

And yet this largely forgotten book was turned into not one, not two but three disparate movies spread out over just 12 years. First was 1949's contemporaneous "House of Strangers" starring Edward G. Robinson as a corrupt New York City banker. For 1954's "Broken Lance," the story was transposed to the wide open country during the late 19th century, featuring Spencer Tracy as a hard-bitten cattle baron. Finally Esther Williams and Cliff Robertson starred in 1961's "The Big Show," set in the world of a traveling German circus.

Talk about artistic license. A summer vacation story gets turned into a film noir, a Western epic and a European flying trapeze romance?

At their hearts, though, all of the stories are about a strong father figure struggling to wrangle his offspring and deal with his own tragic choices. "Lance," directed by Edward Dmytryk, takes on Shakespearean notes at time, with the tale of four brothers vying for the scraps of dad's crumbling domain, while the once-vital patriarch slips further and further into physical and spiritual decay.

Interestingly, the screenplay by Richard Murphy was not nominated by for an Academy Award -- nor did it deserve to be -- but the story by Philip Yordan actually won the Oscar. The Academy has shifted around the writing categories more than any other award area over the years, though they've been pretty stable since about 1970. Prior to 1957 there were separate story and screenwriting awards.

Under modern rules, a "story by" credit means the writer had to have submitted an earlier version of the script, or at least a treatment or some kind of written product. Simply "having an idea" doesn't get you a story credit -- otherwise, a lot of producers would be considered writers.

I thought Dmytryk, a journeyman with many notable credits to his name (including "Crossfire," "The End of the Affair" and "The Caine Mutiny"), does a fine job shooting the rocky vistas, making excellent use of the CinemaScope widescreen format.

I did have one significant complaint, however: the lack of close-ups for Spencer Tracy. Tracy was a famously naturalistic performer, whose subtle facial cues and postures could convey a lot of emotional information with just a centimeter of movement. But Dmytryk keeps his camera at middle distance or further for nearly the entire film. That tends to let the orneriness of his character, Matt Devereaux, play out but not his little moments of self-doubt and reconciliation.

Contrastingly, young Robert Wagner is given many loving close-ups as Matt's youngest (and prettiest) son, Joe. Given a slight color tinge to reflect Joe's "half-breed" Indian status, the camera swoops in adoringly for him again and again.

Joe's a pretty straightforward and uninteresting character, the good son who stands by his father while his brothers all stab him in the back. Richard Widmark plays Ben, the oldest, still resentful over a lifetime of being treated more like a hired cowpuncher than heir apparent. Ben is certainly savvy and probably would make a good next-generation cattleman -- he suggests opening an office in town to negotiate the best prices with the Chicago meat markets.

But Matt is an old-school authoritarian type. He expects his sons to be eternally loyal and subservient. He built an empire with his own two hands, and wants to keep it that way forever. 

When the two dimwitted middle kids -- Mike (Hugh O'Brian) and Denny (Earl Holliman) -- steal a couple of old steers to supplement the meager $40 a month wage the old man gives them, he's ready to send them packing. Matt callously kills the two Mexicans who helped them, as he's done his whole life to rustlers or anyone who tried to infringe upon his land. Tin stars and courtrooms are unnecessary delays in the attainment of justice, Matt figures, strongly prejudiced toward the frontier kind.

Matt doesn't kill the Indian hands who also assisted in the theft, since it's obvious Matt has a tender spot for their kind. His wife, played by Katy Jurado (who got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod), is addressed by all as Señora, despite being a for-real Comanche "princess" (daughter of the chief). He married her after his first wife, mother of his three oldest, died during the hard early years on the Devereaux ranch.

It's a true romance, but racial prejudice is always loitering just outside the door. Horace, the bendable governor played by E.G. Marshall, owes his position to Matt's pulling the levers of power. But when Joe starts to fall for his own daughter, Barbara (Jean Peters), the governor registers his objections while apologizing for his inability to change with the times.

Matt abruptly ends their friendship just when he needed it the most. A trial is coming after Matt and his boys raided a copper mine that was dumping its waste into his stream, killing 40 head of cattle. Despite the inconsequential nature of the loss -- representing something like 0.08% of Devereaux's massive herd -- Matt sternly orders the mine foreman,  Mac Andrews (Robert Burton), to shut down or be shut down.

When the scores of miners learn their livelihood is threatened by a bossy cattleman and his four sons, they prepare to put an end to the Devereaux clan. But then Two Moons (Eduard Franz), Matt's trusted Indian foreman, rides in with their own men and lay waste to the mine.

Nobody's killed, but Matt is put on trial and his cussed obstinance on the witness stand -- repeatedly threatening the opposing attorney (Philip Ober) with bodily harm -- pretty much puts the nails in the coffin.

To save his dad, Joe claims that he started the fight and gets sentenced to three years in jail. His release from prison acts as a framing device, with Joe now the prodigal son returned to the dusty ruins of the ranch, which is gradually being turned over to oil drilling.

Matt had a stroke after losing his honor by allowing Joe to take the fall, a raging dog confined to his chair with no bite to back up the bark. He foolishly split up the ranch among his four sons as a preventive move in case the court case went against him, but that now means Ben, with the support of the brothers dim, is now in charge.

In perhaps the film's best scene, Matt begs Ben not to sell off part of the ranch to oilmen, and is haughtily refused. Widmark and Tracy really go at each other, two men who are two alike to ever really get along with each other. Matt confesses that he couldn't stand his own father's stern yoke and rode off to seek his fortune, and it's clear that he would have preferred Ben follow suit.

Really, this is what the movie should have been about. The lackluster Joe character and the needless romance aspect should all have been given the dusty boot.

At 96 minutes, "Broken Lance" aspires to be an epic Western but just doesn't have the narrative sweep and distinctive characters to go any higher than it is: a serviceable story of fathers and sons, squabbling on the squalid plains.

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