Watched One-Eyed-Jacks again

Discussion in 'Cactus Cafe' started by huisache, Jul 23, 2012.

  1. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    This film is about fifty years old and one of the classic westerns and holds up real well. Its history is interesting. The producer hired a writer from Gunsmoke, Sam Peckinpah, to do a script (Peckinpah later directed some classic westerns such as Ride the High Country, Major Dundee and The Wild Bunch) and then hired Stanley Kubrick to direct. Kubrick fired Peckinpah and the star, Marlon Brando, got Kubrick fired and took over director duties. He took several years to finish the film and shot enough film to make five movies. His director's cut was five hours long and the producer got somebody else to edit it to standard length. Brando didn't like it but conceded it was a good film after it made money---it just wasn't the film he made.

    OEJs had Brando, Karl Malden, Ben Johnson, Katy Jurado, Slim Pickens and a first time actress from Mexico named Pina Pellicer. All excellent. The music was by Hugo Friedhoffer.

    Years later, Peckinpah made The Wild Bunch with Ben Johnson and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which featured Katy Jurado and Slim Pickens in supporting roles. Slim's death scene was accompanied by Knockin' On Heaven's Door by Dylan.

    Pina Pellicer made a movie in Mexico called Macario before she killed herself. It was based on a short story by B. Traven, who wrote the novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which was made into a film by John Huston that was orchestrated by Hugo Friedhoffer.

    Pellicer is buried in the Panteon Jardin in Mexico City, which is where Pedro Armendariz, who made a bunch of films with John Wayne, was buried. He was born in Mexico but raised in San Antonio. Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete are also buried there. Tina Modotti is not.

    I can't figure out the connection with Kevin Bacon. Anybody have any thoughts on the subject?
     
  2. buckhorn

    buckhorn 1,000+ Posts

    One Eyed Jacks is a sort of idiosyncratic film.

    It was one of the first Westerns to have a sort of anti-hero, and also one of the first to really lay it on thick with the now common plot arc of anti-hero beaten and publicly humiliated only to recover and come seek unholy revenge.

    I wish we could see the 5 hour edit, just like I wish we could see the parts cut out and lost from King Kong '33 (supposedly too scary) or Welles' cut of The Magnificent Ambersons (what kind of ******* cuts up a film and then purposefully destroys all of those elided elements (******* producers).

    Haven't actually done the math on it, but Pedro Armendariz, in addition to being in John Wayne films and a slew of others, was in From Russia With Love playing a Turk (Kerim Bey). Sean Connery or Robert Shaw ought to lead rather quickly to Kevin Bacon.
     
  3. Basil Your Face

    Basil Your Face 100+ Posts

    Never seen it. Looked dumb.
     
  4. Bill in Sinton

    Bill in Sinton 5,000+ Posts

    One Eyed Jacks is a great movie but like others I would like to see the full version and unlike ealier movies those should have been kept. The entire cast was great especially Karl Malden and also Ben Johnson who showed he was a great actor.
     
  5. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    Bacon was in a movie with Myron Natwick, as was Sean Connery, who was in a film with Armendariz, who is buried in the same place in Mexico City as Pina Pellicer, who was in One-Eyed-Jacks with Brando, who was a raging ******* like John Huston, who directed Robert Blake in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (little kid who sold the winning lottery ticket) and was also an *******. Hugo Friedhoffer orchestrated the music for it and OEJs.

    Connery also made films with Robert Shaw, who played Custer in a lamentable western; Errol Flynn also played Custer in They Died With Their Boots On, which was a total hoot. Ronald Reagan played Jeb Stuart in it and was quite good, as usual. He was also the heavy in The Killers by Don Siegel, who directed Clint Eastwood in a number of films and Clint was in Rawhide, which had its themesong by Dimitri Tiomkin, who scored a raft of films which Friedhoffer orchestrated.

    I am thinking that Kevin Bacon may be a great tie in to the rest of the world but how about Slim Pickens? He worked with Ford, Huston, Peckinpah, Kubrick (OEJs and Strangelove) and Tom Mcguane---------Rancho Deluxe, one of the unsung masterpieces of modern comedy.
     
  6. sandypoley

    sandypoley 100+ Posts

    My head hurts!
     

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