Rent One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

Beware! Another Of Those Horrible Elstree Hill DVDs! - One-Eyed Jacks review by Count Otto Black

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... I'm not giving this a rating because I watched less than a minute of it, not because it's a bad film, but because I didn't notice that it was an Elstree Hill DVD before renting it. Cinema Paradiso has a lot of hideously substandard discs made by these rip-off merchants because they're cheap, and cynical penny-pinching apparently matters more than good customer service. Every Elstree Hill DVD I've seen, including this one, looks like a tenth-generation copy of something taped off the telly on VHS a long time ago, and quite possibly is.

See where it says "Studio" on the General Info page? That's not the studio that made the film but the company that printed the DVD, and if it says "Elstree Hill", do NOT rent the movie because the picture quality will be worse than the bootleg version you can watch right now on Youtube without paying this rental company a fee they don't deserve for renting out shoddy garbage like this. By the way, the famous Elstree Film Studio and the not-quite-so-famous Elstree Hill Entertainment have no connection with each other.

On a more positive note, the Blu-Ray version is probably watchable, but since I rented the DVD I wouldn't know.

Unusual & Interesting Western - One-Eyed Jacks review by GI

A film recently restored under the supervision of Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg and one with a troubled yet interesting history. Adapted from a celebrated novel originally by Sam Peckinpah it was due to be directed by Stanley Kubrick who then fell out with star Marlon Brando who then directed the film himself, his only directorial effort. The story is a loose retelling of the Billy The Kid tale and you can see Peckinpah's influence all over the film. Brando plays Rio, mostly referred to as 'Kid', he and his partner Dad Longworth (Karl Malden in the Pat Garrett type role)) rob a Mexican bank but Rio gets caught having been betrayed by Dad. After five years in jail Rio escapes and goes in search of Dad for his revenge. Rio finds he is now the sheriff of a small Californian coastal town, with a family and it's here that the majority the narrative plays out. This is an unusual western, made before the revisionist westerns came along, and because of this it's a film of real appeal and interest. Westerns usually bring a genre defining masculine honour to the stories, but not here. All the characters are without any honour or sense of belonging. They lie, cheat and torture and only in love does Rio find a way towards redemption although the film ends without us knowing if he'll stay the course he promises. Brando is superb and the film showcases his genius. Set mostly on the coast, an unusual setting for a western, he used the raging sea to contrast and illuminate the emotions of the characters. It really is a remarkable achievement for its time. This is definitely a film to get ahold of if you've never seen it, a flawed masterpiece and a film that gets you thinking.