Marlon Brando: Appreciating "Mr. Mumbles"

[tommie]

Apparently Brando hit on Billy Dee Williams:

Billy Dee Williams says Marlon Brando hit on him once

Billy Dee Williams remembers Marlon Brando hitting on him at a party, but said he wasn't interested: 'I prefer women'

ew.com

 

[Willie Oleson]

This has become one of the most gossipy threads on tellytalk.

I agree with @ginnyfan that the older Marlon looks more attractive (especially in that Dick Cavett interview), and I feel exactly the same about Sean Connery.
It's often the incomprehensibly pretty male who suffers the most from aging.
Young Alain Delon looked a million times more beautiful than young Marlon Brando, but that only lasted three or four years, maybe less. I don't think it affected Delon's acting, but perfect beauty is vulnerable and once it's gone it cannot be restored or reinvented as something else.
Handsome (but not too pretty) men have the ability to become more handsome as they grow older. I don't think that would have happened to James Dean but it goes without saying that we've been robbed of a James Dean special guest star HOTEL credit.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Handsome (but not too pretty) men have the ability to become more handsome as they grow older.

Thank you.

I don't think that would have happened to James Dean but it goes without saying that we've been robbed of a James Dean special guest star HOTEL credit.

One actress, Jane Leeves, I think, said that had James Dean lived, he "would have been fat and acting in DYNASTY" (although THE COLBYS seems more likely, but they already had Michael Parks). Maybe James Dean could have been Matthew Blaisdell.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Did I never, ever do a DYNASTIER/DYNOTSEE/DIENAZI/DYNASTIEST title card for Brando...???

DyNotSee -- the stars we never saw on the show | Forums for television shows past and present (tellytalk.net)

Die Nazi | Forums for television shows past and present (tellytalk.net)

DYNASTIEST -- improved, and obscure, title cards | Forums for television shows past and present (tellytalk.net)

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Amazing -- after all these years, I've finally done a Marlon Brando...!

Appropriately, at Butter Tower, in France's Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris ... where you can tango ... for the last time.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

THE GODFATHER

Apparently Brando hit on Billy Dee Williams:

Crawford's revenge.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Marlon Brando turns 100 today!

 

[ginnyfan]

He is TCM's star of the month this April , with Wednesdays dedicated to his movies.

 

[Willie Oleson]

THE GODFATHER

Youtube says I'm too young to watch it.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Youtube says I'm too young to watch it.

Funny. It didn't say that to me....

 

[Crimson]

Made me do a double-take.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1794095431997067363

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I really, really wish that the satirical short, based on Brando and Jacko and Liz and their cross-country trek to escape the 9/11 attacks -- which Corey Feldman swears actually happened -- had been a feature length film.

For one thing, the casting was perfect (well, maybe or maybe not for Michael Jackson)...

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Amazingly, Brando's bizarre THE CHASE (1966) now rates 7.1 on IMDb and 73% on Rotten Tomatoes.

He'll be 102 on Friday.

t's a shame about THE CHASE: Brando, Angie, Fonda, Janice Rule and Miriam Hopkins are just fine (well, except for Angie's line, "I only wish we'd adopted some children," which always elicits a giggle) but Redford is dreadful in his role as the escaped convict; he's just not ready --- I always recast him in my head with Jon Voight (and Robert Blake, who wanted in on the picture, as the oil baron's son, ultimately played by James Fox).

THE CHASE was infamous for behind-the-scenes conflicts: the studio wanted a standard potboiler; producer Sam Speigel did too, but in a different way; screenwriter Lillian Hellman (basing her script on a Horton Foote play) wanted to do something more provocative about oil law with veiled allusions to the Kennedy assassination; director Arthur Penn wanted a claustrophobic pre-BONNIE AND CLYDE frenetic style to the picture; and Brando wanted as many doughnuts as possible on the Craft Service table.

The end result is a shit-show. You can see how it could have worked, what with a good cast, the mid-'60s Halloweenish color scheme, and its despondent John Barry score. But it's all a top-notch mess. And the reasons for Redford's incarceration, his mother's betraying him, and the worthless town's hysteria over his prison break doesn't make much sense -- and this appears to be where the script cuts must have been.

Still, I've usually owned a copy; it's one of those things I re-make in my head.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

On YT, for as long as it lasts:

Although, I always thought THE CHASE was a really weak title.

 

[ginnyfan]

I know it's a hot mess but I do love The Chase. Small town drama is always my thing and this one really delivers on all levels. It would have made for a delicious primetime soap opera. Of course the cast is its No1 attraction, so it's quite a shame that most of them don't really have too many scenes with each other, they are separated in their own dramatic bubbles. One thing that always surprises me is just how vile the small town folk are in this one, they really did not hold back showing the perversion and menace hidden behind those white picket fences. Janice Rule is a riot and Brando is still hot in this, as a hunky sheriff, before his looks truly started to fade.

 

[Crimson]

I do love The Chase. Small town drama is always my thing and this one really delivers on all levels

I've never been tempted by this, mostly because I have never liked any of Brando's work from the mid-50s to THE GODFATHER.

But, that's a helluva cast. And also I ended up loving HURRY SUNDOWN, which you recommended, so this just moved to the top of my To Watch list.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I know it's a hot mess but I do love The Chase. Small town drama is always my thing and this one really delivers on all levels. It would have made for a delicious primetime soap opera. Of course the cast is its No1 attraction, so it's quite a shame that most of them don't really have too many scenes with each other, they are separated in their own dramatic bubbles. One thing that always surprises me is just how vile the small town folk are in this one, they really did not hold back showing the perversion and menace hidden behind those white picket fences. Janice Rule is a riot and Brando is still hot in this, as a hunky sheriff, before his looks truly started to fade.

Oh, I know, I know. THE CHASE Is like whenever CLEOPATRA comes on -- I always sit through it, even though I shouldn't.

 

[Crimson]

The end result is a shit-show.

I know it's a hot mess but I do love The Chase.

Whatever I imagined this movie would be, it surely wasn't what I just watched. Somehow every scene was entertaining, but the film was a frustrating mess. Melodramatic, lurid and overstuffed but somehow empty. So many famous faces, so many characters wandering in and out of scenes, so much talk without any apparent intention.

At one point E. G. Marshall says to Robert Duvall, "Get to the point". The movie never did. I'd love to see the movie these people thought they were making.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Whatever I imagined this movie would be, it surely wasn't what I just watched. Somehow every scene was entertaining, but the film was a frustrating mess. Melodramatic, lurid and overstuffed but somehow empty. So many famous faces, so many characters wandering in and out of scenes, so much talk without any apparent intention.

At one point E. G. Marshall says to Robert Duvall, "Get to the point". The movie never did. I'd love to see the movie these people thought they were making.

Yes, THE CHASE was infamous for behind-the-scenes conflicts (as I may have mentioned earlier in the thread) between screenwriter, producer, director, studio and Brando. The movie wants to be something -- or several things -- and it doesn't quite know what that is.

The studio (and the producer, Sam Spiegel) wanted a traditional potboiler melodrama, the screenwriter (Lillian Hellman, basing her script on a Horton Foote play) wanted to do something more provocative about oil law with veiled allusions to the Kennedy assassination; the director (Arthur Penn) wanted a claustrophobic pre-BONNIE AND CLYDE frenetic style to the picture; and Brando wanted something more to eat.

The cast is strong, but Robert Redford is too green to pull off the doomed escaped convict role. (Maybe the oil magnate's son would have been better for him -- Robert Blake reportedly wanted in on the film). Why was he imprisoned anyway? The stolen money ($50) seems like a ruse. What did actually do -- or witness -- that turned him a crucifixion candidate? How did his mother (Miriam Hopkins supplies the obligatory Scorpio Rising creepy note) betray him, and what did she do to get her house from the oil baron? That appears to be where Hellman's narrative was compromised.

Critical references to the oil depletion allowance were removed from the script under pressure (a decade earlier there was an attempt to delete similar references in GIANT).

The story's teeth were surgically extracted, so what was left was a soap about worthlessly slutty smalltown folks.