Marlon Brando is among a group of no-goodniks who put the snatch on a British heiress, seventeen-year-old Pamela Franklin, in France. The other kidnappers include Rita Moreno, Jess Hahn, and Richard Boone.
You can tell right away that Boone is going to be the standout villain of this edgy piece. His face resembles something a child might rudely plaster together out of lumps of modeling clay. The pock marks, pustules, ill-placed dimples, and other blemishes would have to be added later by a more accomplished sculptor. Boone has a habit of pursing his lips and tucking his tongue into his cheek while he squints, as if examining a loose tooth. His very laugh is a hoarse, smoke-cured cackle.
The movie maybe should have been all about Boone. He doesn't have to do more than wander around peering through shop windows and having coffee at a couple of sidewalk cafés in Paris in order to keep our interest.
Unfortunately, the movie has a plot and the plot torpedoes it and it sinks with all hands. The model here is the gang that gets together to pull off some caper, with some tension between the members, and a final shot at a double cross. Sometimes the plot is relatively simple, as in "Ronin" or "Odds Against Tomorrow", and sometimes it turns positively rococo, as in David Mamet's "Heist." But the rule is that everyone in the gang, for reasons of his own, must pull together until enough tension is generated to precipitate the final violent confrontation.
Not here. The gang is holed up with its captive in a pretty cottage on the bare and windswept coast of the English channel. Franklin has been warned never to step outside. But, thinking everyone is asleep, she tiptoes down the stairs and tries to step over the slumbering figure of Boone. Boone grabs her ankle, she shrieks, and he peeks up her tiny skirt. Then Boone shouts at Franklin and shakes her a bit before Brando appears and puts a stop to it, sending Franklin back upstairs to bed.
Next scene: Brando is arguing with his friend, Jess Hahn, slamming the kitchen table and accusing Boone of being "psycho", of having slapped Franklin around, of punching her, of slamming her head against the wall. The audience has seen no such thing. The discontinuity between what actually happened and Brando's fantastic description of it makes one wonder exactly who is "psycho" around here. Of course it's true that Boone did peek up her skirt but who wouldn't? Pamela Franklin is so yummy that any perfectly normal man might be excused for wanting to nibble her kneecap. Who does Brando think he is, anyway -- judging people so freely? It's not as if HIS escutcheon were without blots.
In fact, though, Brando is pretty good with this unchallenging material. This is not the obese Brando of later years. He's tan and fit, his jaw robust, his lips tiny, and he paces along with a stride that perfectly blends insouciance with purposiveness. He's a man here who knows where he's going, although he must have wondered from time to time how he wound up in this picture. The director, Hubert Cornfield, certainly wondered. Brando refused to do some scenes, showed up drunk for another, and demanded direction from Richard Boone for another.
The scene directed by Boone is the kitchen argument between Brando and his friend Hahn. Aside from the fact that it comes far too soon in the scenario -- I mean, they've only just kidnapped the girl that day and Brando is already fed up with the scheme and thinks it will fail because of Boone -- it lasts too long and gives Jess Hahn an opportunity to prove that he may be a great and bulky screen presence like some other supporting players, but he just can't act. Rita Moreno does better but she's stuck with this tar baby too.
Cornfield ends the movie as he began it, with Pamela Franklin waking up aboard an airplane about to land in Paris. He says he got the idea from a British film called "The Dead of Night." I don't doubt him. The problem is that this roundabout business BELONGS in a nightmare like "Dead of Night," just as it belonged in a life-course novel like "Finnegans Wake." But what is it doing in a caper movie? What's the point? What was Cornfield thinking -- or was he thinking at all? Imagine if, in "The Asphalt Jungle", Sterling Hayden woke up and it was all a dream and the movie started all over at the beginning. Well?
You can tell right away that Boone is going to be the standout villain of this edgy piece. His face resembles something a child might rudely plaster together out of lumps of modeling clay. The pock marks, pustules, ill-placed dimples, and other blemishes would have to be added later by a more accomplished sculptor. Boone has a habit of pursing his lips and tucking his tongue into his cheek while he squints, as if examining a loose tooth. His very laugh is a hoarse, smoke-cured cackle.
The movie maybe should have been all about Boone. He doesn't have to do more than wander around peering through shop windows and having coffee at a couple of sidewalk cafés in Paris in order to keep our interest.
Unfortunately, the movie has a plot and the plot torpedoes it and it sinks with all hands. The model here is the gang that gets together to pull off some caper, with some tension between the members, and a final shot at a double cross. Sometimes the plot is relatively simple, as in "Ronin" or "Odds Against Tomorrow", and sometimes it turns positively rococo, as in David Mamet's "Heist." But the rule is that everyone in the gang, for reasons of his own, must pull together until enough tension is generated to precipitate the final violent confrontation.
Not here. The gang is holed up with its captive in a pretty cottage on the bare and windswept coast of the English channel. Franklin has been warned never to step outside. But, thinking everyone is asleep, she tiptoes down the stairs and tries to step over the slumbering figure of Boone. Boone grabs her ankle, she shrieks, and he peeks up her tiny skirt. Then Boone shouts at Franklin and shakes her a bit before Brando appears and puts a stop to it, sending Franklin back upstairs to bed.
Next scene: Brando is arguing with his friend, Jess Hahn, slamming the kitchen table and accusing Boone of being "psycho", of having slapped Franklin around, of punching her, of slamming her head against the wall. The audience has seen no such thing. The discontinuity between what actually happened and Brando's fantastic description of it makes one wonder exactly who is "psycho" around here. Of course it's true that Boone did peek up her skirt but who wouldn't? Pamela Franklin is so yummy that any perfectly normal man might be excused for wanting to nibble her kneecap. Who does Brando think he is, anyway -- judging people so freely? It's not as if HIS escutcheon were without blots.
In fact, though, Brando is pretty good with this unchallenging material. This is not the obese Brando of later years. He's tan and fit, his jaw robust, his lips tiny, and he paces along with a stride that perfectly blends insouciance with purposiveness. He's a man here who knows where he's going, although he must have wondered from time to time how he wound up in this picture. The director, Hubert Cornfield, certainly wondered. Brando refused to do some scenes, showed up drunk for another, and demanded direction from Richard Boone for another.
The scene directed by Boone is the kitchen argument between Brando and his friend Hahn. Aside from the fact that it comes far too soon in the scenario -- I mean, they've only just kidnapped the girl that day and Brando is already fed up with the scheme and thinks it will fail because of Boone -- it lasts too long and gives Jess Hahn an opportunity to prove that he may be a great and bulky screen presence like some other supporting players, but he just can't act. Rita Moreno does better but she's stuck with this tar baby too.
Cornfield ends the movie as he began it, with Pamela Franklin waking up aboard an airplane about to land in Paris. He says he got the idea from a British film called "The Dead of Night." I don't doubt him. The problem is that this roundabout business BELONGS in a nightmare like "Dead of Night," just as it belonged in a life-course novel like "Finnegans Wake." But what is it doing in a caper movie? What's the point? What was Cornfield thinking -- or was he thinking at all? Imagine if, in "The Asphalt Jungle", Sterling Hayden woke up and it was all a dream and the movie started all over at the beginning. Well?