If you want to fill a blindspot, show it. So was the philosophy in programming Marlon Brando’s sole directorial effort, One-Eyed Jacks, which we’re proud to present at Nitehawk Cinema’s Prospect Park theater Wednesday, September 4 on an IB Technicolor print. Although the film’s assumed a new life since a massive restoration and Criterion’s subsequent release, 35mm screenings prove rare––doubly so on such a format, all the more significant for the final American film shot in VistaVision.
One-Eyed Jacks‘ legend typically overclouds the film itself. The one directorial effort for a man who almost single-handedly redefined acting, it began as a writing project for Sam Peckinpah that Stanley Kubrick would direct. Finding himself at odds––detailed to pretty amusing effect in Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams’ recent biography––with Brando during nearly every phase, Kubrick, weeks before cameras rolled, offered a creative prompt (“Marlon, why don’t you go fuck yourself?”) that facilitated his exit. The rest is history: it gave name to Twin Peaks‘ nefarious nightclub; Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg love the film so dearly they had to rescue it from shoddy DVD presentations; it even inspired a Scott Walker song (keep your volume down if you click that).
It’s quite possible you, like me, know all this without having once laid sight upon One-Eyed Jacks; I hope you’re also excited for discovery in such enviable conditions.