Celebrating Marlon Brando’s 95th Birthday
On April 03, 1924 Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska. I consider him to be one of the biggest influences on me and my love of movies. The era where he was popular in films is far ahead of when I started to watch movies, but I used to browse old movies at Somer’s Video in Logan, Utah. It was there that I began watching old movies. I mostly viewed them with casual interest, but one day I decided to rent A Streetcar Named Desire. It had an impact on me that would drive a new passion for classic cinema and take me on a long trek seeing as many motion pictures as I could.
I remember that it showed me that “old movies” were more than just black & white boredoms, or schmaltzy musicals. There some real emotional elements in them. The acting mesmerized me. I knew I was watching greatness. In honor of his upcoming 95th birthday, I would like to offer my choices for the 10 most essential Brando films. Anyone who is interested in the history of Hollywood needs to know these movies and performances.
10 Essential Movies
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
As I mentioned earlier, this is the film that started it all for me. I believe it likely had just as much influence on a generation of young actors who deviated from the style of acting that had been the standard in Hollywood for the last two decades.
It is a film that didn’t just launch Brando as a first rate Hollywood heavyweight, but featured a group of actors who all gave award worthy performances. The film opens with Blanche Dubois, played with strength and fragility by Vivian Leigh, as she steps of a train in New Orleans. She has arrived in the French Quarter to visit her younger sister Stella (Kim Hunter). Blanche seems to be running from something. We get the idea that her past has been catching up with her.
Blanche likes southern traditions and manners, where a lady is always a lady and man is a protector. She quickly learns that Stella’s husband is not cut from that cloth. Stanley Kowalski (Brando) is a uncouth brute of a man. He works hard and plays hard. Her first encounter with him makes her turn away, repulsed, yet at the same time there is an uncomfortable sexual attraction there as well.
Stanley and Blanche clash on every level. Stella desperately plays referee as the arguments become more and more heated. We see Blanche and how fragile she has become as she increasingly sinks into mental overload until she and Stanley clash in a violent and shattering confrontation.
Written by Tennessee Williams, Streetcar had been a Pulitzer Prize winning play and was directed by Elia Kazan. It’s adult themes erupted a censor battle in Hollywood that diluted the story to some degree. Still the message is clear for those who can easily read between the lines. The film was a box office hit and was nominated for twelve Academy Awards. It won trophies for Vivian Leigh as Best Actress, Karl Malden for Best Supporting Actor, and Kim Hunter for Best Supporting Actress. Though Brando was the lasting memory of the film. He lost the Oscar to Humphrey Bogart for The African Queen. The film was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to the far inferior An American in Paris.
CLASSIC LINE: Hey, Stella!!!!
Julius Caesar (1953)
The brutish Brando from Streetcar seemed like an odd choice to play a role in a Shakespeare tragedy. One critic joked that all the filmmakers needed to do was put Brando in a toga to ensure a box office success. In the part of Marc Antony, he proved that he was more than just a physical presence.
Louis Calhern plays Caesar, and James Mason stars as Brutus. A group of Roman senators, led by Cassius (John Gielgud) convince Brutus that Caesar is planning on dissolving the republic and establishing himself as the monarch.
The screen version of the play is a fairly straight-forward adaptation. It proved that Brando was capable of holding his own with the british, theatre trained thespians. Proving the point, Brando received his third Oscar nomination in three years for Best Actor.
While I wouldn’t call it one of his greatest films, it does showcase how Brando could take on a variety of roles and be believable.
CLASSIC LINE: You Blocks. You Stones. You Worse Then Senseless Things!
The Wild One (1953)
At first glance The Wild One looks likes a cheap, B-Movie that exploits the motorcycle craze of the early and mid 1950’s. With the help of a dynamic performance from Brando, as rebel Johnny Stabler, it becomes much more.
The story is based on a real life event that took place in 1947 in a small California town when a motorcycle gathering got out of hand over a Fourth of July weekend. Hollywood hadn’t explored youth oriented, rebellious pictures much yet. The Wild One became a cultural sensation as the first motorcycle gang movie to emerge.
It looks really tame for today’s standards, but it packed a punch at the time. After its success, a slew of rebellious teen movies flooded the local cinema house.
CLASSIC LINE: Mildred: Johnny? What are you rebelling against? Johnny: What’ve you got?
On the Waterfront (1954)
Considered by many to be the high point of his early film career, On the Waterfront, which reunited him with director Elia Kazan, was a triumph in every sense. It was that rare moment when actor and role became simpatico. It would be hard to imagine any other person playing the part of Terry Malloy.
Lee J. Cobb plays Johnny Friendly, a mobster who rules the waterfront with an iron fist. The politicians look the other way and the police don’t want to get involved. Friendly uses Malloy to lean on workers on the edge of the river. Malloy, however falls for the sister of a man who was killed. She wants justice and Malloy begins to challenge the boss.
The film received twelve Academy Award nominations and won eight of those, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brando) and Best Supporting Actress for Eva Marie Saint. The film was also a box office hit, solidifying Brando as THE actor of his generation.
CLASSIC LINES: I Coulda Been a Contender.
Guys and Dolls (1955)
I wouldn’t say that Guys and Dolls is really one of Marlon Brando’s best films, but it does show off a side to the actor that is rarely seen. That of a singer in a musical. Here he is all dressed up and belting out show tunes with the best of them.
Frank Sinatra plays Nathan Detroit. He likes to gamble, but the police are cracking down. He meets Sky Masterson (Brando). He wages a bet with him that Sky must take a woman of Detroit’s choosing to dinner in Havana, Cuba. Detroit picks Sister Sarah Brown, played by Jean Simmons.
The musical had been a hit on Broadway and Frank Sinatra coveted the lead role of Masterson. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz wanted Brando since he was a huge box office star at that time. Sinatra instead was cast as Detroit. He fumed at this since he had already lost out of the role of Terry Malloy to Brando in On the Waterfront. This made for a lot of tension on the set.
While not among Brando’s greatest performances, it is still one of the more entertaining MGM musicals of the 1950’s. Brando sings fine, but be shines best as a charismatic male lead. It might even be a bit “too Hollywood” for him.
CLASSIC LINE: Is it wrong to gamble, Or only to lose?
The Young Lions (1959)
After watching The Young Lions a few years ago, I found it to be a bit of a lost and underappreciated film. Not many people mention it when they talk about great Brando movies. Especially given the fact that the film received positive critical reviews and was a box office hit. It might be partially due to the fact that Brando shared the screen with a few other big name actors including Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin and Maximilian Schell.
Brando plays Christian Diestl, a young German ski instructor who believes that Hitler will bring prosperity to the country. He joins the army at the outbreak of war and is stationed in North Africa. He quickly sees that the war is different than he expected.
U.S. soldier Michael Whiteacre (Martin) meets and befriends Noah Ackerman (Clift), a fellow U.S. army soldier who is also Jewish during their physical examinations. They start into the U.S. side and the story follows them through the war.
As the war drags on Christian becomes increasingly depressed and disgusted with the war, but can’t see his way out with his country. The film takes on a very emotional and dramatic examination that good people exist in many places and situations in our world. I think it is one of Brando’s strongest performances.
CLASSIC LINE: Michael Whiteacre: Look, I’ve read all the books. I know that in 10 years we’ll be bosom friends with the Germans and the Japanese. Then I’ll be pretty annoyed that I was killed.
The Godfather (1972)
There has been so much said and written about The Godfather. Simply put: It is one of the greatest cinematic experiences in movie history. It ranks on top, or close to the top of my all-time favorite films, depending what week I am ranking my favs.
I suppose there are some people out there who haven’t seen or don’t really know much about The Godfather. The plot follows the Corleone family, led by the Don (Brando). He is the head of one of the most powerful mob groups in the United States. But, the other families are reaching for more power and a mafia war erupts.
When Corleone is wounded, his sons must step into the leadership roles, with a reluctant and naive Michael (Al Pacino) taking control in ways he never expected or never prepared for.
Two successful sequels followed and movie history was re-written. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Brando took home the Best Actor award for the second time. In a now famous moment from the Oscar telecast, Brando sent Sacheen LittleFeather to decline the Oscar. She made a speech acknowledging that Brando had refused the statue in protest of how Native American were represented in film.
It was one of the most talked about and controversial moments at the Oscars. The film which he won for has gone down in history as a pinnacle of great American films. No true movie fan should miss it.
CLASSIC LINE: I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.
Last Tango in Paris (1973)
Turning down the Oscar for The Godfather didn’t prevent Marlon Brando from receiving another nomination for Best Actor the following year for the very controversial Last Tango in Paris. Director Bernardo Bertolucci spun a disturbing story about Paul (Brando), a middle aged hotel owner who is mourning the suicide death of his wife, Rosa.
He meets Jeanne, played by Maria Schneider. She is interested in renting the same Paris apartment that Paul is looking at. She is in her twenties and Paul is instantly attracted to her. He gets the apartment while he and Jeanne start into an adventurous and wild sexual relationship that eventually leads down a dangerous path.
The film was very graphic for it time, and still is. It received an X Rating upon its initial release, and still carries an NC-17 today. It became very controversial with movie-goers and Oscar voters alike. John Wayne commented that he’d like to punch Brando in the face after watching it.
In reality it shows a very real and very sad look at an older man losing himself in a kind of sexual freedom. The film remains highly talked about. In 2018 there was a great amount of discussion over the way Bertolucci and Brando filmed the movie. Schneider herself was unaware of just how graphic things would get until the scene was being shot. The #METOO movement only emphasized the way in which women have been treated by men in Hollywood.
CLASSIC LINE: I could dance forever. Oh, my hemorrhoid!
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Marlon Brando re-teamed with the director of The Godfather for a movie that drove home the horror of war. Francis Ford Coppola was considered one of the greatest directors of the 1970’s. As the decade came to a close, he decided to do a film that was an unflinching look at the war that had been front and center when the decade had begun. The Vietnam War was still dividing the nation and soldiers had returned home with nightmares and injuries. Many felt abandoned by their country.
Colonel Walter Kurtz (Brando) has gone insane. The pressures of fighting the war has taken their toll. He has hidden himself away deep in the jungles of Cambodia where he commands his own army. The United States armed forces decides they need to send a special group of soldiers in to bring the mad Kurtz back, and take him out of his position of power.
Martin Sheen is one of the special ops who must venture into the heart of darkness to confront the shadowy Colonel. The journey forces himself into an exploration of his own sanity and decisions, while confronting the horrors of this war.
Coppola creates a surreal, and mesmerizing horror of a film. The imagery stays with the viewer long after the credits have run. The film is based on and updated from the book “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad.
As great as the movie is, the making of the film turned out to be just as hypnotic. The cast and crew all suffered while filming on location. Footage was shot that eventually made itself into its own documentary entitle Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. This makes a very interesting…and long double feature.
CLASSIC LINE: I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
The Freshman (1990)
Following Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando’s screen appearances became more sporadic and varied greatly in quality. In 1989 he received is seventh and last Oscar nomination for his supporting role in the apartheid drama A Dry White Season. It was a good, though short performance, and deserves mention. I decided to include his next movie as one of my picks, however. In 1990 he took a much bigger role in the comedy The Freshman. In it he spoofed his role in The Godfather. It wasn’t mocking the part, but it lovingly memorialized it.
Matthew Broderick stars as Clark Kellog. He arrives in New York to start his education in film at New York University. Having his money stolen, he takes a job working for a mob boss named Carmine Sabatini, played by Brando. Clark is amazed how much Sabatini looks like Don Corleone. The job is unusual and Clark finds himself in the middle of illegal importing of animals on the endangered species list.
Shortly before the film was released into theaters, Brando famously went public to declare that the film was horrible. This crushed writer/director Andrew Bergman, especially since he had said that directing Brando was a great joy for him and he found the veteran actor delightful.
Despite that critics rejoiced with the movie. They found it to be a comic gem and Brando was routinely singled out as being a big reason for the films success.
CLASSIC LINE: (Looking around the dorm) So this is college. I didn’t miss much.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!
I truly recommend that anyone interested in the history of films and the culture of movies, should seek out Marlon Brando. He was a true original and one of the greatest actors to every grace the silver screen
On April 03, 2019, he would have been 95 years old. The twentieth century entertainment wouldn’t have been the same without his talent. Happy Birthday, Mr. Brando…wherever you are!