Jonatwork wrote:
I watched the Brando version the other night for the first time since it first came to video. It certainly isn't good, but it's not one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
The whole crazy story of the production is wonderfully reported at http://www.everythingisundercontrol.org and at some other site I can't track down now. The funniest take on it came from David Thewlis, who reported that when John Frankenheimer took over production, the first thing he did was announce to everyone, "This script is sh*t!" and the second thing was to set about rewriting it; and as Thewlis put it (I'm quoting from memory) "when the new pages would come down you'd read them and you'd say, 'This is sh*t as well.'"

In spite of my disappointment that the novel had been messed up--again--one thing did impress me about the movie, and no reviewer pointed it out. Despite the three principals' lack of faith in what they were doing, as well as the lack of any direction that they could or would follow, their actors' instincts were very much active and responsive to their situation, both on and off screen, so that their performances, probably without their awareness, clearly portrayed people trapped in a world of spiraling insanity. If they'd had something sensible to work with, they could have really made something out of that. But I think the project was doomed from the get-go; the seeds of lunacy were in the original script (however much the original writer-director still believes in it). With this subject, you can't outdo the novel in excess without throwing away its whole social and ethical basis, and that's necessary for it to work even on a simple narrative level, as in the first movie.