Posted on 04/06/2014 12:54:57 AM PDT by Rummyfan
SteynOnline celebrated Doris Day's 90th birthday on Thursday, and several readers wrote to point out that April 3rd 1924 was also the late Marlon Brando's birthday. You could hardly ask for two more dissimilar stars, so I thought it would be appropriate to make Brando the subject of this week's Saturday film feature:
A few years back, The New Yorker published a cartoon in which two ladies discussed the appeal of Marlon Brando: "He plays galoots really well," suggested the first woman.
"No, he's not a galoot," says the second. "Like in On The Waterfront, he's much more sensitive than a galoot."
"He's a sensitive galoot," offers the first.
"Isn't that our ideal?" says the second. "A sensitive galoot?"
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
FReepers can't come on this web site and bemoan the awful state of American education and then commit grammatical errors that are taught in third grade. Nobody is asking for publication quality posts in informal writing, but a minimum of self-respect requires that a post be well enough written to at least be intelligible. His wasn't. Stop making excuses.
I’ve seen it lots of times, “don’t ever reply to me again”, while writing ridiculous stuff on an open forum. “Don’t ever reply to me again”, is supposed to cut off all debate is it?
If someone tells me that, I’ll never quit responding, within the confines of F.R. rules.
Brando destroyed MGM with Mutiny on the Bounty. His bizarre performance wrecked the film although I love the moment when he settles down for a moment, slaps Trevor Howard and says: “You bloody bastard.” It was as if he suddenly decided to drop the campy stuff for a moment and “live in the moment” as actors say.
Missouri Breaks is one of his weirdest performances. I must admit I never made it through. I’m sorry your friend had his screenplay so messed up. Writers are always destroyed by Hollywood!
You may be right about Capote and their differing tastes. But the quotes contained in the essay are painful to read. Brando never forgave Capote. Well, he came to an even worse end than Brando.
I recommend a movie Steyn ignores because it came earlier than Streetcar: The Men. A beautiful movie about paralyzed vets in a VA hospital. Brando is very young and very good.
Also, see if you can find a You Tube video of Edward R. Murrow interviewing Brando. It’s standard stuff until Brando’s father appears. He lauds his son’s talent and then says something along the lines of “But I have no respect for him as a person.” This was very early in Brando’s career - long before he went off the deep end. It’s sad to see Brando’s hurt and shocked expression after this little bit of tv history.
I also wish Steyn had knocked off the fat stuff.
No mention of Stallone?
In some circles you just can't say anything negative about Brando and the other three, and all four of them are made of the same fabric as an Emperor's New Clothes.
Why would I mention Stallone?
What a small world. A friend of mine went to high school with the girl who played Randy Quaid's fat gal at the dance.
Really? Were they Montana kids? Actually I don't even know anymore where they filmed that movie, now that I think about it..
At any rate the girl is probably lucky she didn't end up with Randy Quaid, as he sort of went off the deep end..
ee cummings!
All that is missing is someone to write stream of consciousness with no punctuation like Joyce.
I wish I had known about FR when I was a poor TA in grad school. You should have seen some of the papers I had to read. The Viking kitties would have had lots and lots of paper to shred and use as cat litter and to wrap their lutefisk in. The majority were, for lack of a better word, awful.
I don’t know why “Breaks” struck a chord with me.
Maybe because I grew up just down the Missouri from the country in the film.
But I really rather enjoyed Brando playing the lunatic Western dandy.
And I always enjoyed Nicholson and his romance with (I have to look up her name) Kathleen Lloyd, who more or less rightly figures Nicholson is after sex, and after tempting him for some while goes through a long lament about it telling him “Well I won’t give it to you.”
He yelps back, “Fine—keep the damn thing. I don’t want it!”
At which point she cries and all becomes well.
But the rough seedy crew around Nicholson and Harry Dean Stanton is thoroughly convincing, and Nicholson’s eventual battle with Brando is tight with tension as well.
‘Course that could just mostly for the kid who never gets over a good cowboy story, right?
He went to school in Darby and also Dillon and I think they filmed around Billings. They would have been out of high school by then so she had probably moved away from home and she told him they picked some locals for extras and happened to need a chubby girl for the dance scene. Poor thing was embarrassed at the high school reunion.
Cowboy movies are good. I am devoted to American westerns.
"She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open."
Oh that’s brilliant!!!! I love it.
I had a student write “It’s a dog e dog world” once.
I hope this pleases the Viking Kitties.
You have been called pedantic. This comes, as I’m sure you know, from the word pedant: a person who annoys other people by correcting small errors and giving too much attention to minor details. Also, obsolete: a male schoolteacher.
Think is, the errors were not small, nor the details minor.
Oh, well, try to help some people, and what do they do?
I've had this bookmarked for a while now....looks like fun.
Did you notice the name of the gal who wrote that article?
No good deed...goes unpunished.
Yes, it’s as good a time as any to trot that out and dust it off. The Admin Lecture Series threads are always good.
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