Awful Movie Performances By Great Actors - Marlon Brando - The Island Of Doctor Moreau

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The actor who gave so much to The Godfather and On The Waterfront gave a textbook demonstration on how not to act in his 1996 performance as Dr Moreau. Even Val Kilmer can’t compete with him, which is really saying something here. Looking like a cross between Bette Davis in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane and Baron Harkonnen from David Lynch’s Dune, Brando is dressed in white mime artist make-up to denote some extreme form of albinism, but resembles a clown you definitely wouldn’t want to hire for your children’s parties. He performs a strange piano recital accompanied by a dwarf dressed as a Mini-Me style smaller version of himself and at one point he uses what looks like a tin ice-bucket as a fez. He reads most of his lines from an auto-cue. It’s as though he was misbehaving as some kind of colossal childish sulking tantrum on set and the director, (John Frankenheimer) failed to notice. The real worry is why the Director never said, “OK Marlon, you’ve had your little joke. Now can we do it properly and finish the movie?” David Thewlis spends much of the film declaring histrionic outrage and disbelief at what he sees. It may just be a genuine reaction to how Brando looked on set each day. This isn’t acting. It’s a documentary about a great star in on-screen nervous breakdown melt-down in the closing days of his career. To quote his Apocalypse Now persona Captain Kurtz, “The horror, the horror.” Youtube Video clip guaranteed to make your draw drop thinking this was ever made Arthur Chappell