One Eyed Jacks (1961)

I truly don’t understand Marlon Brando’s acting. He certainly has a presence on screen, but his weird, mumbly elocution pulls me away from his characters almost every time. His direction is similarly uneven. There are scenes where it seems he’s going for ultra-realism, but then it’d veer into the convenient coincidences of any light-weight film. Here he’s Rio, a bank robber who was deserted by his partner, played by Karl Malden, when they are tailed by the Mexican police after one of their big scores. Later escaping from prison, he’s dead-set on revenge. Malden, now a sheriff, won’t let that happen, though his motivations, along with those of deputy Slim Pickens, are questionable beyond that. Katy Jurado plays his new wife and the beautiful Pilar Pellicer is his stepdaughter. The love story between Pellicer and Brando comes out of nowhere and there is no chemistry whatsoever, but the beach setting is both gorgeous and unusual in a Western.

Oscar Nomination: Best Cinematography, Color