Movie 666

By Demon

Once upon a time in Hollywood, director Stanley Kubrick was slated to direct a Western. One can only imagine what the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey , A Clockwork Orange and so many other monumental works would have done with the horse and gun genre. Documents from the time, however, provide us some insight.

The film was One Eyed Jacks, ultimately directed by Marlon Brando and starring Marlon Brando as “The Kid”. Before Brando took complete control of the picture, a regular who’s who of well-known cinema figures touched this picture in one way or another.

Brandovision: One Eyed Jacks

Sam Peckinpah wrote the original screenplay for the film, but did not receive screen credit. Rod Serling also took a turn working the script. Ultimately, Guy Trosper and Calder Willingham took credit. Stanley Kubrick was set to direct, but left the film with little explanation before shooting began.

Here’s how the story goes:

The Hollywood Reporter announced on October 18, 1956 that producer Frank Rosenberg bought rights to Charles Neider’s novel, The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, for $40,000. Two years after that, Pennebaker Inc., Marlon Brando’s independent production company, bought the rights to the novel, as well as Sam Peckinpah’s first-draft screenplay of the novel, for $150,000. Even at this time it was announced that Brando may direct.

Later that same year Kubrick was announced as director of Gun’s Up , the working title for the production. Shortly after this announcement, the name of the film was changed to One-Eyed Jacks and Pina Pellicer, “the black haired Mexican girl who looks like Audrey Hepburn,” was announced as “the unanimous choice of Brando, Rosenberg, and Kubrick” to play the female lead.

Finally, November 20, 1958, Kubrick quit as director of One-Eyed Jacks, stating that he had the utmost respect for Marlon Brando as one of “the world’s foremost artists,” but had recently acquired the rights to Nabokov’s Lolita and wanted to begin production work immediately in light of this wonderful opportunity.

Nothing “official” is stated in these reports about trouble between Brando and Kubrick. However, professional gossip Louella Parsons of the L.A. Examiner (who apparently had a personal relationship with Kubrick), suspects there was a conflict of personalities involved. Nonetheless, after “calling Stan” at home, Parsons stated that Kubrick would not say anything about One Eyed Jacks due to stipulations in his contract.

Some evidence of tension between Kubrick and Brando is found in a twenty-five page archival transcript of a meeting where Kubrick, Brando, Rosenberg, and several other producers and planners associated with One-Eyed Jacks discuss the film scene by scene. It is hard to tell exactly which version of the screenplay they are basing their discussion on at this point, although some of the features in the Peckinpah draft are noticeably missing from their conversation - namely, the flashback structure and introductory scenes.

Although Brando and Kubrick do not fight in the meeting, they are certainly the most aggressive in the group, and communicate authoritatively about what should and should not be in the film. In some particularly telling exchanges, Brando disagrees with Kubrick on account of his “negativity” (Kubrick wants to add a funeral scene to provide local color on the bandits’ escape from town) and “vulgar” humor (involving a misunderstanding in a brothel).

There is also some general tension between Brando and Kubrick on conceptions of cinematic reality: Brando wants to stress believability and realism (stressing period race relations in Monterrey and the visual organization of western towns) while Kubrick is more expressionistic (wanting a “Las Vegas” town with “bar, bar, bar,” and getting rid of period “Zapata” uniforms for something more interesting, like “French” ones).

In some ways, the tension reflected in this meeting is between the roles of director and actor. In a scene involving a cave, for instance, Kubrick wants to film long shots on location and then handle the acting in the studio, while Brando says “it’s hard to develop scenes of reality on stage,” preferring to perform on site. Purely technical issues are also discussed in the meeting, about which Brando has little input.

Despite apparent disagreements, it is impossible to tell whether these two were truly butting heads or not. This was a creative discussion covering quite of bit of ground. More intriguing is Kubrick’s “vision” for the movie itself. Kubrick makes several suggestions in the meeting which provide a sense of of how the Kubrick Western would look and feel; some of his ideas taking shape in later films.

• In the opening scene (a bank robbery), Kubrick wants to “open close on Johnny” and then “establish where you are with pull back.” This signature technique is apparent in virtually every Kubrick film –  consider the pull back from the face of Alex in the opening scene of A Clockwork Orange for a blatant example. Kubrick’s Western would not have been exempt from his distinct visual style.
• Kubrick constantly emphasizes “economy and simplicity” in regard to scenes and particular shots. Although Kubrick’s visual style is oftentimes quite complicated - for instance, the way the camera glides down the halls and through the walls in Lolita - oftentimes his shots are remarkably simple with their symmetrical arrangements and carefully ordered spaces. Already concerned with the visual quality of the picture, Kubrick tells the production team that the camera man should attend conference meetings like this in the future. The producer tells him that this is not usually done, and Kubrick retorts, “it should be.”
• There is a noticeable European influence in many of Kubrick’s suggestions as well. Not only does he want to replace Mexican uniforms which French ones, but he wants to show a bar with “red walls” like “in the Van Gogh painting.” Kubrick wants Dad Longworth’s house to be “Victorian,” and in a scene about a street fight taking place during a fiesta, to have someone play a “Vienese Waltz on a tuba.” Kubrick would go on to bring paintings to life in Barry Lyndon with its painterly details and emphasis on historical detail in Eighteenth Century Europe.
• Kubrick obviously wants to emphasize the wild side of the west. At least three times during the conference he attempts to “flesh out” the brothel scenes, saying that one character “should be naked” and that the Mexican prostitutes should be diversified by adding some white ones as well. Women have a particular place in Kubrick films - when not absent (Dr. Strangelove, 2001), they are found raped (A Clockwork Orange) or chased with hatchets (The Shining). Kubrick would ultimately explore the world of prostitution in Eyes Wide Shut .
• Finally, Kubrick wants to dispense with traditional music in his western. On the subject of a score for the film, he says “figure for the worst.” Kubrick wants to leave out “dialogue and gunfight music” and only use it “for the party and ride throughs.” Kubrick says the best music in the western comes from horses and guns and that he does not like chase music. “Music is overdone in 99 out of 100 pictures,” he says. “It has a value in love scenes.” Obviously, Kubrick was very deliberate with music in his films, disposing with traditional scores completely. The most famous example of this is when Kubrick abandoned Alex North’s completed original score for 2001 and opted instead for previously scored classical music.

It is not surprising that little of Stanley Kubrick can be seen in the final version of One Eyed Jacks . Although involved in many of the cast and location decisions, he ultimately left the picture to work on projects over which he had greater control — not to mention being replaced at the helm by the highly opinionated and driven Brando.

Kubrick never directed a Western, although one can find Western motifs in the duels of Barry Lyndon, the bars and bordellos of Eyes Wide Shut, and the nuclear bronc riding Dr. Strangelove. If Kubrick had directed One Eyed Jacks, it certainly would have born the director’s authorial stamp — unfortunately, we can only imagine the outcome.

Information for this article was found in original studio documents located at the Margaret Herrick Academy Library, Los Angeles.

Related posts:

1. The Actor Directs: Marlon Brando and One-Eyed Jacks
2. Stanley Kubrick and the Death of Cinema
3. Amblin Intelligence: Spielberg’s AI and the Ghost in the Machine
4. Brutal Massacre: A Comedy
5. Thighs Wide Shut: Kubrick’s Final Film

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