The performance Marlon Brando called the worst of his career: “Embarrassingly bad”
The sheer brilliance of many of Marlon Brando’s performances, from A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront to The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, has meant that some of his much less impressive appearances have somehow been forgiven. However, for all the acclaim he was showered with and the Oscars that he won, the star actually had a few terrible turns in his career, making some bizarre acting choices and executing them poorly.
You might not remember the erotic farce movie Candy from 1968, but Brando starred in the movie alongside the likes of some huge stars, including Richard Burton and John Huston, to widespread negative acclaim. The critically panned film saw Brando play an Indian spiritual guru (brownface included), who attempted to seduce the titular character, portrayed by 18-year-old Ewa Aulin. It was, quite frankly, one of his most shameless acting decisions.
How about the infamous The Island of Dr. Moreau? The movie was full of complications, with the ageing star refusing to learn his lines, feuding with co-star Val Kilmer, and frequently turning up late – or not at all. These conditions unsurprisingly resulted in a poor performance from the acting legend, who was told his dialogue through an earpiece as he filmed each scene.
Perhaps the fact that Brando had received acclaim so young and so early into his career – he earned his first Oscar nomination for A Streetcar Named Desire, his second ever film role – gave the actor a false sense of security. He had proved his brilliance enough times to allow himself to act clumsily throughout his career, hiding his dud performances behind roles in some of the greatest movies of all time.
Several of Brando’s choices were simply bizarre, but arguably the worst was Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, made in celebration of the explorer’s 500th anniversary. Directed by John Glen and co-written by Mario Puzo, better known for writing The Godfather, the film was set up to be a grand historical epic, but instead, it fell flat, with Brando giving a terrible performance.
The actor once admitted via Songs My Mother Taught Me that he “mumbled my way through the part and gave an embarrassingly bad performance.” Brando managed to earn a Golden Raspberry nomination for ‘Worst Supporting Actor’ for his role as Tomás de Torquemada, while Tom Selleck took home the ‘Worst Supporting Actor’ award for playing King Ferdinand V.
It was certainly an interesting choice of film for Brando, and like many of his movies, it was rife with production issues, although this time the problems weren’t because of the actor. The movie faced various financial issues, but that didn’t stop Brando from walking away with a hefty sum. “The pay wasn’t bad, though: $5 million for five days’ work,” he added.
Legendary film critic Roger Ebert was also not a fan of the movie, calling it “Marlon Brando’s worst performance in memory.” He also accused the actor of “looking moody and delivering his lines with the absolute minimum of energy necessary to be audible.” It seems as though Brando was just as aware of his bad performance as critics were – he even tried to have his name removed from the credits of the film.
