The five most disastrous Marlon Brando performances
It’s pointless calling Marlon Brando anything other than one of the greatest actors in history because that’s precisely what he is, but it’s also equally pointless calling him one of the least motivated actors in history towards the end of his career, because that’s precisely what he was.
In terms of impact and inspiration, he might well be the single most influential thespian who ever lived, which, by extension, makes it easy to overlook or forget that his career suffered just as many lows as it enjoyed highs. On top form, he was unmatchable, but far too often, he simply couldn’t be arsed.
The majority of his weakest and least effective performances came during the twilight years when he’d show up late, refuse to learn his lines, and phone it in for the sake of an easy payday, but inconsistency plagued Brando throughout his legendary silver screen tenure.
There’s a combination of factors at play ranging from ambivalence to poor choices, but the commonality is that in their own unique way, each of the following five turns were disastrous.
Marlon Brando’s worst performances:
5. A Countess from Hong Kong (Charlie Chaplin, 1967)
On paper, the legendary Charlie Chaplin drafting in Brando to headline a passion project he’d been harbouring dreams to realise as a feature since 1931 had the potential to be something special, but the differences in approach between the two rendered that potential entirely obsolete.
Brando’s diplomat falls in love with Sophia Loren’s Russian countess in a routine story, and he only signed on because he wanted to work with Chaplin, a decision he ended up regretting after referring to the silver screen icon as not only a “fearsomely cruel man”, but also an “egotistical tyrant and a penny-pincher”.
That combination of disappointment and apathy is reflected in Brando’s performance, which never contemplates the idea of leaving first gear. It’s a muted turn that was evidently affected by his off-camera frustrations, turning a dream pairing of industry titans into a damp squib in a widely panned box office bomb.
4. Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (John Glen, 1992)
The battle of 1992’s warring Christopher Columbus biopics was handily won in terms of acclaim and earning power by Ridley Scott‘s 1492: Conquest of Paradise, which isn’t saying much when they were both wet farts that failed to do justice to the hagiography of their shared subject.
In typical Brando fashion, he earned a $5million paycheque for what amounted to an extended cameo as Tomás de Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition, but he still decided that he wanted to have his name removed from the credits despite being the top-billed name in the cast, a request that was rejected.
His monotonous line readings and complete disinterest in doing anything other than delivering his dialogue with as little enthusiasm as possible was endemic of late-stage Brando, with the actor bringing not a shred of energy to his performance. He’s there in body, but he left his spirit at home.
3. Candy (Christian Marquand, 1968)
The late 1960s was hardly the greatest period of Brando’s professional life, which helps explain why he signed on to star in a psychedelic sex farce as a racist caricature that saw him adopt a stereotypical Indian accent and brownface to play the part of Grindl.
Based on the erotic novel of the same name, Brando seems to think he’d channelled the spirit of Peter Sellers by taking on such a broad caricature, but the end result comes across as the star playing to an audience of one. He probably found himself hilarious, but that would put him firmly in the minority.
Richard Burton, Ringo Starr, James Coburn, and Walter Matthau are among the ensemble’s eclectic names, but only Brando gets to play a spiritual guru who convinces the nubile title character that the easiest way to achieve enlightenment is from bumping uglies. He may have kept himself entertained with such an exaggerated turn, but that’s about it.
2. The Island of Dr. Moreau (John Frankenheimer, 1996)
One of the most infamously troubled movies of all time, Brando’s contributions to The Island of Dr. Moreau would have been a lot more palatable had he hammed it up, munched on the scenery, or done something to justify the expense of keeping him entertained when cameras weren’t rolling.
Instead, he flat-out refused to learn his lines (not for the first time, either), had them fed to him via an earpiece, and delivered them very much like a man who was being told exactly what to say by the voice inside his head. There’s no rhyme or reason for many of the choices he makes, and as a result, it’s sadder than anything else to watch.
Apathetic to an obvious degree, Brando wears an ice bucket on his head, does everything in his power to be a nuisance for anyone around him, and continues tarnishing his vaunted reputation by wasting his time and talent on being a complete and utter nuisance.
1. The Teahouse of the August Moon (Daniel Mann, 1956)
As the most famous practitioner of the method acting technique, Brando would completely dedicate himself to his characters in order to do them complete justice, which begs the question as to why he would play a Japanese interpreter named Sakini.
He may have spent months studying the local culture, learning some of the language, and adopting some of the gesticulations of those he found himself researching, but at the end of the day, Brando had to spend hours in the makeup chair to be transformed into a Japanese guy.
Not to state the obvious, but he was a white dude from Nebraska, and there’s only so far the method can stretch before it becomes madness. In this case, Brando went full-blown racist parody in a culture clash comedy that’s aged horrendously but somehow doesn’t get brought up as often as Mickey Rooney’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s debacle.
