Film Focus: Marlon Brando, Volume 1 (19571967)

One of the greatest actors of all time, Marlon Brando, brings six powerful performances to this Limited Edition boxset.Sayonara (1957)The Fugitive Kind (1960)One-Eyed Jacks (1961)The Ugly American (1963)Bedtime Story (1964)A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)Limited Edition 6-Disc Hardbox. 1500 copies only.Sayonara (1957) – Imprint Collection #274This moving Korean War drama won four Academy Awards, starring Marlon Brando as an American Air Force fighter pilot who falls in love with a Japanese actress (Miiko Taka), and finds himself having to contend with a cruel military policy.Directed by Pulitzer Prize winner Joshua Logan (South Pacific, Picnic), and based on the novel of the same name by James A. Michener, also a Pulitzer Prize winner.Featuring performances from Patricia Owens (The Fly), James Garner (The Great Escape), Martha Scott (The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur), Ricardo Montalbán (Star Trek), Red Buttons (Pete’s Dragon), and Tony Award and Golden Globe nominated actress and singer Miyoshi Umeki (Flower Drum Song), who won an oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in this film.Tackling racism and prejudice head-on, Sayonara was number one at the US box office for five consecutive weeks on release, described by the New York Times as a “beautiful, sentimental tale”, with Brando’s leading performance giving “eccentricity and excitement to a richly colourful film”.The Fugitive Kind (1960) – Imprint Collection #275Directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Tennessee Williams, The Fugitive Kind brings Williams’ play Orpheus Descending to life.This “piercing account of loneliness and disappointment in a crass and tyrannical world” (New York Times) follows a handsome drifter (Brando) with a guitar… and a past. When he takes a job as a store clerk in Two Rivers, Mississippi, his strong and silent demeanour attracts not only the local party girl, but also the shopkeeper’s exotic wife, leading to an explosive love triangle.Starring Academy Award winners Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward (Rachel, Rachel), Anna Magnani (The Rose Tattoo), and winner of the Triple Crown Of Acting, Maureen Stapleton (Reds, Cocoon).One-Eyed Jacks (1961) – Imprint Collection #276This Academy Award-winning Western is Marlon Brando’s sole directorial credit, which he also stars in as revenge-driven Rio. Quentin Tarantino named this as one of his three favourite Westerns.After robbing a Mexican bank, Dad Longworth takes the loot and leaves his partner, Rio, to be captured. After five hard years in prison, Rio escapes and travels to California to kill Dad.Legendary Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront) co-stars with Brando, alongside Pina Pellicer and Slim Pickens (Dr. Strangelove, Blazing Saddles).The Ugly American (1963) – Imprint Collection #277Marlon Brando travels to Southeast Asia in this epic adventure, based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer, and labelled “one of Brando’s best performances” (New York Daily).A compassionate American ambassador to the strife-torn Southeast Asian nation of Sarkhan is met with suspicion from the locals as tries to keep the Communists in the north from overrunning the weakened democracy in the south.Kukrit Pramoj appears in the film as Prime Minister of fictional country Sarkhan, who went on to be the thirteenth Prime Minister of Thailand in 1975.Bedtime Story (1964) – Imprint Collection #278Bedtime Story, the hit comedy later remade into Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) and The Hustle (2019), stars Marlon Brando and David Niven as hilarious con artists.Caddish Freddy Benson enjoys setting up elaborate ruses to seduce women. Suave Lawrence Jameson likes to pose as a prince to swindle the wealthy. When the two men meet, each perceives the other as an interloper and a threat.A Countess From Hong Kong (1967) – Imprint Collection #279Directed, written, produced and scored by Charlie Chaplin, this romantic comedy is Chaplin’s final film (and his only film in colour), and marks his final screen appearance. The film was in development for over thirty years, based on Chaplin’s meeting of Russian performer Moussia Sodskaya.Starring Hollywood legends Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, as well as Tony Award-winning Sydney Chaplin (son of Charlie).In Hong Kong, the ambassador returning to America meets a refugee Russian countess without a passport, who he decides to hide in his cabin.