PhilPaine.com

Mar­lon Bran­do’s per­for­mances were stun­ning in sev­er­al fine films of the 1950’s (On The Water­front, A Street­car Named Desire, Julius Cae­sar). But some films just don’t trav­el well through time. What­ev­er it was that peo­ple saw in this film, wide­ly regard­ed as a clas­sic, has evap­o­rat­ed. Bran­do’s per­for­mance mes­mer­ized audi­ences at the time, who seemed to see some kind of pul­sat­ing ani­mal mag­net­ism in it. But Bran­do was already get­ting pudgy, and the char­ac­ter now just seems to be a com­plete nitwit. You start laugh­ing in the open­ing cred­its, as you see a motor­cyle gang “rid­ing” fake motor­cy­cles in front of a pro­ject­ed back­drop. They’re about as men­ac­ing as the Brady Bunch. They ter­ror­ize a small Cal­i­for­nia town with a reign of impo­lite­ness. Bran­do has ani­mal mag­net­ism, alright — he looks like a chip­munk in a leather jack­et. What­ev­er this film had then, it just does­n’t work anymore.