One-Eyed Jacks

Rating:
Summary: HORRENDOUS DVD QUALITY
Review: I bought this 2003 Westlake Entertainment Group release of One-Eyed Jacks thinking that because of the price, it was the best version of the movie available on DVD. If it is, I'm disgusted. It is not in widescreen and the image is not sharp, much less crisp. I paid about $14.95 for this disc. To my great disappointment it's a horrible transfer. And I don't think I'm being picky. Granted, it is only my opinion, but I was not satisfied with the quality at all. I'm going to wait for the studio that made the film to eventually (hopefully) release a more acceptable version. I give this DVD version one star because zero stars is not an option.

Rating:
Summary: terrific directorial debut
Review: Brando fine as director. He does excellent turn as the Rio
character in the film. Malden, as usual, top notch as menacing heavy. Beautifully photographed. It's too bad Brando didn't direct a few more films.

Rating:
Summary: Method Western
Review: Marlon Brando is his legendary charismatic self, if a bit methody, in "One-Eyed Jacks". Brando, as director, does a good but not solid job here. The story could have been tightened up a bit. The story concerns a bank robber, Kid Rio(Brando) and his cohort, Dad Longworth(Karl Malden) on the run from Mexican police after robbing a bank there. After losing one of their horses Longworth is supposed to use the one remaining horse to retrieve another. Instead, he makes off with the gold they've stolen and leaves Rio to the police. Five years later, upon escaping a Mexican prison, Rio vows revenge on Longworth. On finding him, Rio discovers that Longworth is the respected sherriff of Monterey, California with a wife and beautiful step-daughter. The story is a good one and the coastal photography here is gorgeous. I didn't find Malden to be that formidable a baddy, though. Good support is given here by Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens. Timothy Carey, a veteran of Kubrick films, plays a lout that Brando tangles with in a hotel. Also of note is that prior to taking the directorial reigns, Stanley Kubrick was attached to this film but had a falling out with Brando.

Rating:
Summary: Great film - but which one to buy?
Review: This is a great western, and Brando and Maldon give outstanding performances. Brando's girl (Pina Pellicer) is a stunning beauty and perfect for this film. The scenes with Brando and Slim Pickens are priceless, and Brando's line to the "tub of guts" woman abuser is (in my view) one of the best lines in movie history. All the supporting cast is superb too. This is what makes for a great film.

This really deserves a "5" rating - but then video quality has to be considered. This review is for the Platinum version, which is good, but not great. Having seen this movie on TV, it has beautiful coastal scenery and overall excellent photography. Based on all the reviews I've read, currently NONE OF DVDs out there are top quality. That's a shame.

I suggest just waiting until this movie is reissued in high quality widescreen format. Let's hope that's not too long!

Rating:
Summary: Rating is for the film not the DVD quality
Review: This is a great film with unusual visual and story elements. Brando is superb and Karl Malden possibly better in this fairly complex and character driven revenge western. Don't expect wall to wall action and shoot-outs because you will be disappointed. This is a thinking man's western with several themes explored through tremendous acting on the part of the cast. That being said about the film, let me just say that out of the seven to ten DVD versions available perhaps one or two are watchable. Why Paramount would not invest a little money into THE overlooked film of arguably our greatest American film actor is beyond me. Give the public a cleaned up print of this film and a little advertising based purely on Brando's reputation and they just might make some money off of it. As it stands the film will continue to be maligned and overlooked due to the atrocious DVD transfers that proliferate every video store and drugstore bargain bin. Good luck finding a good version. I watched it on the Diamond Entertainment version in letterbox and it was a fairly good transfer of an unrestored late 1961 film. It would be a wonderful thing to see this film restored with some of that lost million foot of footage Brando shot included in a DVD package. Ah but to dream. Brando deserves better.

Rating:
Summary: Buy the Platinum Disc Corporation DVD of One-Eyed Jacks!
Review: Just bought the Platinum Disc Corporation DVD of One-Eyed Jacks, based on a review I read here. The quality is fine - no problems with the picture quality or the audio, and it is a letterbox version. I bought it through Barnes and Noble.com for $5.98 as I had a gift certificate I needed to use. I actually bought their last copy and they said they might not be reordering. At the time of this writing, Amazon is out of stock on the Platinum Disc version as well, but there are a number of them available used and new through Amazon secondary sellers. I was nervous after reading all the terrible reviews of various versions of the DVD. The Platinum Disc Corporation version is fine - no complaints, and very reasonably priced. You can buy with confidence. Hope this helps!

Rating:
Summary: Great western
Review: I picked this up after reading about it in the bios after Brando's death. Great flick.
Malden vs. Brando scenes are fantastic. Malden makes such a great complex villian and Brando ranks right up there with James Dean as the ultimate rebel.
Several stories in one flick.
The friendship of Brando and the Mexican he excapes with.
The revenge story.
The pyschoanalysis of Malden's character and what happens to someone who betrays, not just a one dimensional character.
The Slim Pickens vs. Brando subplot.
The whole Ben Johnson bank robbery aspect.
The love story.

Unlike other reviews I read here, I thought Brando's love interest gave an excellent performance. I'm glad the film resisted the cliches of Malden's final shot
.....
killing one of the main characters at the end.



Rating:
Summary: Four Aces
Review: So the word had come down from on high. The mandarins have spoken, and the outline of Brando's career has begun to take form. In brief, he was a flash in the pan: a handful of great roles in the early 50s followed by a lengthy decline marked by occasional triumphs ascribed mostly to the efforts of other people. Entire decades, e.g. the 60s, went past without a single role worth noticing.

Much as I hate to contradict my betters, this is a load of crapola. A master's talent may ebb and flow, but it seldom fails completely. Brando made good films in every period of his career. In the 60s, supposedly his artistic Gobi, we can point to The Chase, Morituri, Burn!, and One Eyed Jacks.

One Eyed Jacks is in many ways the most interesting of the lot. It's one of Brando's few Westerns, and the only film he directed. (Everyone knows the Kubrick story, which, I think, goes a long way to explain why the film has been dismissed.) One question that occurs to me is whether it was filmed from the Burst of Vermilion script that Truman Capote had such fun sneering at in his interview with Brando. But whatever the case, Jacks is no actor's film, it's a fully realized picture, a fine example of the gritty, adult Western that began appearing the 50s and reached its apotheosis in Peckipah's work a decade later.

The acting is uniformly superb. Brando is at his best, a mercurial, Byronic figure as frightening as he is appealing. Brando excelled at playing rebels, and Rio ranks as such with Terry Malloy and Stanley Kowalski. Supporting roles are more than adequately filled by such Western regulars as Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson, and Slim Pickens (Jacks is obviously the source of Terry Southern's great story about Picken's first meeting James Earl Jones, who wanted to know what it like working with Brando: "Wayul, I worked with Bud Brando for six months, and he never done nothin' that weren't all man and all white.") Karl Malden's whipcracking performance will come as quite a surprise to those familiar only with his television persona. The only exception is the love interest, an anorexic little thing who, thankfully, is not onscreen for very long.

Earlier reviews make it clear that the available versions vary widely in quality, to say the least. I saw it in this one, a dark, overexposed version with the focus more than iffy (that's why the rating is docked a notch). A pity, since the cinematography seems exceptional. One of these days, somebody will need to prepare a cleaned-up version so that we can make a fairer judgement of the thing. As it stands, Brando's eye appears to have matched his acting talents. It's a shame he didn't go on to direct others.

The impulse to cut down the tall trees is perfectly understandable, which doesn't make it any less contemptible. It's a lot easier to sneer at an artist's eccentricities, weight problems, and severely dysfunctional offspring than to actually analyze the work, which could be open to error and might even put you in the firing line. But after all that is forgotten, the films and performances will remain. One Eyed Jacks will be prominent among them.




Rating:
Summary: one-eyed transfer
Review: If you have been reading the reviews of this DVD, you no doubt have noticed the complaints about the DVD transfer. There are approximately 10 "production" houses that market this movie, all claiming Digital Gold Collection, Digital Remastered. I bought both the Alpha Studios (ASIN B00005RERU) and the Unicorn (ASIN B00005UM42). The Alpha release is the worst transfer I have ever seen. To borrow a great line from the movie "Don't be doin' her like that. " Total grainy 8mm projector quality. The worst.

The Unicorn release is much better, very near typical DVD video quality. The picture on the case has only a close-up of a scowling Brando wearing a sombero with half of his face shaded (ala One Eyed Jack).

The movie itself is on a level with Shane, Red River, The Man who Shot Liberty Valence, and Nevada Smith....although I hesitate comparing any Western or any movie to Shane. Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Karl Malden, Pina, Katy, Marlon Brando.....It doesn't get much better than this.

I really can't add any details of the movie, out of respect to those who have yet to see it. Great story, Great cast, Great location, and absolutely GREAT lines.

Deserves 5 stars , but the quality of the Alpha print is so bad, it detracts from the character, mood, and atmosphere of the movie. GO FOR THE UNICORN RELEASE ON AMAZON.


Mysterious DVD release...10 studios marketing a classic movie so cheaply, with only a few, perhaps one, studios approaching even typical video quality.

Rating:
Summary: Leisure entertainment version is a winner
Review: As you've probably read, it's hit or miss when you buy one of these. I took a chance for $4.00 at Boscov's, and won big. Packaging says "Digital Gold Collection" . Close-up photo of Brando on the cover, claims digital remastering and 5.1 & Dolby surround. Transfer is good (a little soft, but so what?), and is letterbox. I also picked up a copy of 'Boot Hill/They Call Me Trinty' by Leisure Entertainment that was lame-ass pan and scan (no mention of aspect ratio on either film's packaging, by the way), but I don't regret the $6 bucks for that one, because I'd have been happy to pay $10 for 'One Eyed Jacks'!
Hope this helps you find a good copy!