The Nightcomers (1971)

          The last movie Marlon Brando made before his twin 1972 triumphs of The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, which briefly returned him to prominence as one of the world’s most revered actors, The Nightcomers is a strange film on many levels. Not only is The Nightcomersa prequel—which in 1971 was still a rarity in cinema—but it’s a prequel to a book, rather than a previous movie. Written by Michael Hastings and produced and directed by Michael Winner, the film imagines what events might have preceded the narrative of Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw. Additionally, while Brando has top billing and a colorful role, the real leads of the picture are juvenile players Christopher Ellis and Verna Harvey, portraying children who fall under the spell of Brando’s character. (After all, these children will eventually become the protagonists of The Turn of the Screw.) The final major aspect of The Nightcomers’ strangeness is its brazen juxtaposition of eroticism and youth—The Nightcomers features bondage, nudity, and psychosexual abuse in the context of a story about children navigating adolescence.

          Set in late 19th century England, the picture begins when a wealthy aristocrat (Harry Andrews) leaves two orphaned children—of whom he is the nominal guardian—in the care of a housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Thora Bird), and a nanny/teacher, Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham). The master of the house wants nothing to do with the raising of Flora (Harvey) and Miles (Ellis). Thus, the children have the run of a country estate with only the two women and a handyman, Peter Quint (Brando), for company. Peter is a crass Irishman more interested in play than work, so he fascinates the kids with his imaginative games, tall tales, and wild lectures about the nature of life and death. (“If you really love someone,” he says, “sometimes you really want to kill them.”) Much to the chagrin of the stern Mrs. Grose, the children spend most of their time with Quint, often engaging in dangerous shenanigans at his urging.

          The estate takes on a darker color when night falls, because Peter regularly visits Miss Jessel’s bedroom for rough sexual encounters—and since the children are so enthralled by Peter, Miles watches one such encounter through a peephole and attempts to re-create the bondage-filled tryst with Flora. Eventually, the children’s obsession with Peter has tragic consequences

          The Nightcomers has many peculiarities that could be described as flaws, such as the absence of a clearly defined leading character and the lack of satisfying psychological explanations for the extreme behavior of Peter, Miss Jessel, and the children. Yet as a hypothesis for what led to events in The Turn of the Screw, the film is highly imaginative. It is also effective as thriller. The sex scenes between Beacham and Brando are bracing, and the climax is horrific. As for Brando, while his lilting brogue may strike some viewers as overdone, the actor smoothly incarnates a multidimensional character. Ellis and Harvey blend innocence and wickedness effectively, while Bird strikes the correct uptight posture. Beacham, alas, is the picture’s weak link thanks to her superficial performance. That said, her eye-popping curves make the lust that drives the story highly believable.

The Nightcomers: GROOVY

The Missouri Breaks (1976)

          When it’s referred to at all, The Missouri Breaks is generally cited as the movie that derailed Marlon Brando’s ’70s comeback, because after reclaiming prominence with the 1972 double-whammy of The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, Brando confounded supporters by delivering such a campy performance in The Missouri Breaksthat he entered the realm of self-parody. Ironically, however, Brando isn’t even the star of this offbeat Western, despite his top billing. The Missouri Breaks is a Jack Nicholson vehicle. But such is the power of Brando’s myth that he dominates the picture—and the picture’s reputation. On one level, it’s a shame the good things in The Missouri Breaks were overshadowed by Brando’s self-indulgence, since the movie’s dialogue has loads of frontier-varmint flavor and the location photography is elegant. Plus, writer Thomas McGuane’s characteristically eccentric storyline takes a fresh approach to ancient themes of revenge and vigilantism. But on another level, Brando’s silly performance is exactly what The Missouri Breaks deserves, since the film is unnecessarily languid and turgid; perhaps a stronger storyline might have motivated Brando to furnish a more streamlined characterization.

          In any event, Nicholson stars as Tom Logan, leader of a grubby band of cattle rustlers operating in Montana. When one of Tom’s accomplices is killed by order of a rural judge named David Braxton (John McLian), Tom purchases a ranch near David’s property with the intention of tormenting his enemy. Meanwhile, David hires a mercenary named Robert E. Lee Clayton (Brando) to smoke out local rustlers. (David is, of course, unaware of Tom’s true identity.) Further complicating matters, Tom courts David’s lonely, willful daughter, Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). The story has a few layers too many, its sprawling flow more suited to a novel than a movie, and McGuane’s script often gets lost in thickets of flavorful chitty-chat; to use a musical analogy, The Missouri Breaks is like a jam in search of a melody.

          Director Arthur Penn, whose previous films Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Little Big Man (1970) so cleverly undercut genre expectations, veers too far (and too inconsistently) away from the mainstream with The Missouri Breaks—the movie toggles between insouciant tomfoolery and numbingly serious drama. In fact, the film is at its best when nothing much is happening onscreen, because simple scenes allow McGuane and Penn to focus on believably mundane rhythms of behavior and characterization. Supporting player Harry Dean Stanton shines in many of these throwaway scenes with his innately laconic vibe. Nicholson’s at a bit of a loss from start to finish, grasping for a central theme around which to build his sloppily rendered character, and Brando—well, it says everything that the actor performs one of his climactic scenes in drag, for no apparent reason. Whether he’s chirping a comical Irish accent, peering around his horse from odd angles, or sulking in a bubble bath, Brando presents a series of goofy sketches in lieu of a proper characterization.

The Missouri Breaks: FUNKY

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

          Few ’70s films have provoked as much discussion as Last Tango in Paris, for myriad reasons. The movie’s filled with rough sex, leading man Marlon Brando’s performance has been described as everything from juvenile silliness to Method-driven genius, and the opaque storytelling leaves all sorts of room for interpretation. Plus, thanks to the sophisticated images created by director/co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci and master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, Last Tango in Paris looks like art of the highest order—so it’s hard to reconcile the film’s elegant sheen with its exploitive nature. Because, make no mistake, Last Tango in Paris exploits leading lady Maria Schneider to an absurd degree. Although Brando never flashes more than a brief glimpse of his derriere, Schneider reveals every inch of her body, often performing scenes wearing nothing but a scarf. On a deeper level, she exposes cringe-inducing vulnerability, especially in the notorious scene of Brando’s character sodomizing Schneider’s character.
          And just as Schneider portrays a sexual plaything, it seems she was a pawn in Bertolucci’s and Brando’s macho mind games. The stench of male ego is everywhere in Last Tango.
          Set in modern-day France, the picture begins with fortysomething American Paul (Brando) screaming in the streets, obviously lost in some sort of private grief. Then pretty young Frenchwoman Jeanne (Schneider) walks by him and continues on her way. Moments later, they both end up examining a vacant apartment. As they haggle over who’s entitled to rent the place, an attraction develops between them, and they have intense sex within moments of meeting each other. Paul then proposes an arrangement—he and Jeanne shall meet in the apartment regularly for trysts, but they won’t share any personal information with each other. As this unusual relationship develops, the movie shows the lovers in their private lives. Paul is a hotel owner whose unfaithful wife just committed suicide, and Jeanne is a confused youth on the verge of marrying a narcissistic filmmaker.
          Paul’s existential crisis is clear, but the reason Jeanne agrees to the illicit relationship is never explained in a satisfactory fashion. That is until one reads about the making of the film, and discovers that the storyline grew out of Bertolucci’s sexual fantasies. Since the film shows Paul tormenting his lover by violating her in painful physical ways and by demanding that she do the same to him—to say nothing of calling her demeaning names and flailing a dead rat in front of her face—Bertolucci’s fantasy life seems a horrific place, or at the very least a realm highly unfriendly to women.
          In fact, were it not for the scenes of Jeanne in her private life, Schneider’s character would come across as little more than a bag of flesh that Brando’s character periodically fucks. That’s because Brando’s performance seethes with egotism. Yes, Paul’s in agony because of betrayal and loss, but he inflicts his pain on everyone in his path, as if he’s the only person who’s ever been hurt by life. Thus, unsuspecting Frenchmen and Frenchwomen are subjected to his tantrums and whining, and viewers of Last Tango in Paris are subjected to nonsense dialogue that reportedly arose from a combination of improvisation and scripting. At one point, Paul advises Jeanne to “go right up in the ass of death to find the womb of fear.” One suspects this stuff meant a lot to Brando (and Bertolucci) while they were in the crucible of artistic creation, but seen from a more rational perspective, certain behavior and dialogue comes off as dross.
          Still, because of the fundamental tension between its cinematic beauty and its narrative ugliness, Last Tango in Paris is a unique statement. And for some, obviously, it’s a powerful one—among other accolades, the movie earned two Oscar nominations, for Bertolucci (Best Direct0r) and Brando (Best Actor). Therefore, it’s impossible to arrive at a full understanding of what ’70s cinema means without investigating the mysteries of this startling picture, which bore an X-rating during its original release. Just beware: You’ll never look at butter the same way again.

Last Tango in Paris: FREAKY