by Frank Calvillo
Very few actors created as much of a mystique as Marlon Brando did. The actor’s deep intensity and unpredictability he brought to every scene he was in, forever changed the face of acting and made him a true film icon.
The 1950s were truly Brando’s decade. With critical and commercial hits such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and Sayonara, the actor had established himself as one of Hollywood’s most bankable leading men as well as an actor who cared deeply about the stories he chose to help tell, even if they weren’t always up to date with the society’s ideals.
By the start of the new decade, Brando had won an Oscar (winning on his fourth consecutive nomination), directed his first feature, and was basking in the glow of the moderate box-office success of the future classic, Mutiny on the Bounty.
Yet something happened to Brando during this period. He had become increasingly difficult to work with and his temperamental attitude towards the media was becoming more and more problematic.
Moreover, many claimed that the actor was starting to lose interest in his craft. According to some, the problem went beyond merely feeling bored, Brando actually began to hate acting. As a result, he became a tricky proposition for producers and directors for virtually a decade; a time many refer to as Brando’s lost period where the actor was merely coasting through a series of second rate material while giving his directors and co-stars as much difficulty as possible.
While many tend to skip over this period of Brando’s largely stellar career, going straight from Bounty to The Godfather, I for one think that Brando did some genuinely interesting work in a collection of quality films.
In honor of the recently released and celebrated documentary, Listen to Me Marlon, I thought I’d go back to the actor’s dark professional period in defense of the great work he managed to turn out.
Not many think of Brando as a comedic actor, and while he isn’t the most skilled of comedians, the actor equipped himself more than admirably in one of the toughest of film genres. Bedtime Story (later remade as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) saw him and co-star David Niven play scheming bachelors who compete to romance and con a wealthy socialite (Shirley Jones), while in the Charlie Chaplin-directed A Countess from Hong Kong, the actor played an unhappily married diplomat who falls in love a beautiful stowaway (Sophia Loren) on an ocean liner. While neither film was particularly successful, those who saw them couldn’t deny Brando’s shining talent as a top rate straight man. His facial reactions to both Niven and Loren are priceless, but more than that, his delivery of lines was on point with his characters’ exasperation and proved to be the very definition of deadpan.
In keeping with his desire to experiment and push himself as an actor, Brando dabbled in darker genres a bit during this period. In one of his more acclaimed performances of the ’60s, the actor adopted an Irish accent to play the doomed Peter Quint in The Nightcomers; the prequel to the horror classic The Innocents. His stirring performance helped craft a character which was both reprehensible as well as oddly likeable and earned him a British Academy Award nomination. The actor’s willingness to play morally corrupt figures gave him acting fuel and was heavily apparent when he took on the role of a kidnapper in the disturbing thriller The Night of the Following Day. The film’s Twilight Zone-like premise might seem hokey now, yet the film is prime genre material for the decade, anchored by a typically superb performance by the actor.
Some have been quick to point out that Brando’s high profile involvement with many of the social movements of the day (such as civil rights) commanded most of his energies, causing his movie career to falter. But Brando took his passion for political themes seriously and actively sought out projects which echoed his sentiments. In The Ugly American, Brando tackled communism and anti-Americanism as a U.S. diplomat sent to Southeast Asia for what was one of the most critically polarizing films of his career, earning a Golden Globe nomination in the process. In a similar fashion, the highly political Burn! earned him raves for portraying the leader of a 19th century slave revolt in the Caribbean, while also giving the actor one of his most favorite movie making experiences.
Despite the fact that Brando had become “box office poison” and was labeled difficult to work with, it didn’t stop a number of up-and-coming/high profile directors from wanting him for their films. Not long after his success on The Miracle Worker, Arthur Penn chose Brando to lead an impressive cast which included Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, and Robert Duvall as the sheriff of a small southern town who tries to keep order when an escaped convict arrives in The Chase. Meanwhile, the actor gave one of his most acclaimed performances in John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye where, playing a closeted homosexual Army captain married to Elizabeth Taylor, he challenged the social mores of the day for one of his most daring turns on screen.
It would be a full decade until Brando returned to critical and commercial glory with successes including The Godfather (resulting in his infamous rejection of the Best Actor Oscar), Last Tango In Paris, Apocalypse Now, and Superman.
Despite some misses, Brando enjoyed great professional triumphs in the final stages of his career. He earned his eighth and final Oscar nomination for the political drama A Dry White Season and drew great acclaim satirizing his Godfather persona for the enjoyable comedy The Freshman. Meanwhile, the romantic drama Don Juan DeMarco co-starring Johnny Depp and The Score co-starring Robert DeNiro brought the actor some latter day box-office hits.
I certainly can’t dispute the claims that the actor was impossible to work with or had really grown to dislike his profession, but I do believe that, regardless of era, the unique essence Brando managed to bring to the screen, never left him.
