Page 53 - Film Facilities & Studios Almanac_ok

“SAYONARA, BUD”
“SAYONARA, BUD”
cinema magic
MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO
I coulda been a contender,
I coulda had class,” Marlon
Brando mumbled famously as ex-boxer Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront, one of his most imitated film roles. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
then Brando has been flattered more than most Hollywood stars.
“What are you rebelling against?”, his scowling, leathered biker was asked in The Wild One. “Whaddya got?” he drawled back. And nearly 20 years after that, with a mouth full of cotton wool, he uttered the immortal, “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse,” in The Godfather.
One of only a handful of actors immediately identifiable merely by their surname, Brando (or Bud as both close family and friends called him) is, for some, the greatest film actor of all time.
That was certainly the considered opinion of screenwriter/novelist Budd Schulberg, who penned On The Waterfront, which earned Brando the first of his two Best Actor Oscars.
Schulberg, noting the gradual, physical and, arguably, mental disinte- gration of a once great romantic icon, pointed up the main reason for his decline: “Fame was a monkey – indeed, a 500lb gorilla – that he could never, throughout his tempestuous career, get off of his back.”
The art of acting can be defined as BB and AB – as in Before Brando and After Brando – suggested Richard Schickel, one of his many biographers.
After his early, explosive success on the New York stage, notably as sweaty and singleted Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire – a role he was to repeat on film – Brando’s act- ing was confined solely to films.
He made 40 of them across six decades - from 1950’s The Men playing a war torn paraplegic, (and pre- researching anonymously in the amputees ward of a Vets hospital) to an old woman (recording in blonde wig
and full drag) for a new animated fea- ture, completing the voice over just two weeks before his death.
Authenticity was everything, as he popularised The Method form of act- ing, which was enthusiastically espoused by many of Hollywood’s later young talents – from James Dean to De Niro, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino in particular. He was never afraid to switch genres or accents. He spoke Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, sang-and-danced in Guys And Dolls, uttered strangulated British vowels in Mutiny On The Bounty and packed a six-shooter in several Westerns, most notably One Eyed Jacks which he also directed, but to not great acclaim.
As his body ballooned along with his escalating asking price, he enjoyed the privilege of rarity value. The fewer the roles, the bigger the payday even if, as was often the case, a turkey or three resulted.
After the high point of the early 70s when he made The Godfather (for his second Oscar) and Last Tango In Paris back-to-back, he was memorable, if brief, in Superman, Apocalypse Now and A Dry White Season. Of the rest,
there should be mostly a respected but regrettable silence.
Off-screen, Brando was, says Schulberg, “at his best a man of princi- ple, at his worst a victim of his own contradictions and erratic behaviour.” Best then to remember him as a great actor who, unlike Terry Malloy, was indeed a contender with a great deal of class, most of the time. ■ QUENTIN FALK
Photo main: Marlon Brando in Guys And Dolls; above left from top: in A Streetcar Named Desire;
with Grace Kelly (winner Best Actress The Country Girl) and with his Best Actor Oscar for On The Waterfront in 1954; in Night Of The Following Day; as Don Corleone in The Godfather; above right from top: The poster image for Apocalypse Now; Brando in Candy, The Wild One and Last Tango In Paris