This in that time in Marlon Brando’s career where he isn’t the boyishly handsome rogue as in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE but before he got charactery in THE GODFATHER and subsequently went off the rails. I really wanted to love this, but I had a hard time keeping focus on it. The beginning was very slowly paced and it’s he second half really propels everything. Brando is such a great actor, that he elevates all of the scenes he is in. He is really magnetic. This is helpful, especially when he acts opposite Pina Pellicer. She isn’t a particularly strong actress in the role of Louisa. Ben Johnson is also so good. I’m coming to love seeing him whenever I see him in anything. Adding his character as a secondary villain works really well. Dad is probably one of the most vile villains I’ve seen in a while and probably directly inspired David Webb Peoples for the Little Bill character in UNFORGIVEN. It’s hard to tell how well Brando is as a director considering he only directed this one and Stanley Kubrick did most of the prep-work apparently. Another thing that was really noticeable was how realistic the language of the film was. I think that can be attributed to Rod Serling and Sam Peckinpah writing on it (but not getting writing credit). It shows a lot of stuff Sam Peckinpah would later implement in his language for THE WILD BUNCH, albeit to a lesser extent.
