Outrate

Reflections in Gold

The original release of Reflections in a Golden Eye was tinted entirely in gold but test audiences found that puzzling, and so a normal Technicolour version was released (my review).

With neither time nor a manifest list to track down the preview audiences who fucked it up for the rest of us, please enjoy this mega-gallery of stills and clips from the original version. Gold standard cinema, indeed.

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Et tu, Brute?

Marlon Brando plays chess during a break during a break in the filming of 1953’s Julius Caesar. The film was directed by six-time Academy Award winner Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who apart from directing All About Eve also made this film.

Brando in a scene in Julius Caesar:

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Doing Lines: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

It should hardly be any effort to watch this scene enough times to memorise the dialogue (transcripted below) since Marlon Brando performs the entire thing in a wife beater and a bad mood:

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Happy Birthday James Baldwin

James Baldwin was born on this day (August 2) in 1924. He passed away (from liver cancer) in 1987.

The author of Giovanni’s Room and a campaigner against discrimination (race, poverty, homosexuality), James Baldwin’s adventures included this televised roundtable of 1963, which he shared with Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Charlton Heston and Sidney Poitier among others:

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Being Brando

Here’s my boyfriend returning home to me after another long day at his work:

Marlon Brando

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Gold Standard

REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE

USA, 1967
Director: John Huston
Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Zorro David

Reflections In A Golden Eye is another unmissable stop along the great gay Film Noir-Southern Gothic line, which also takes in Suddenly, Last Summer, and The Deep End. Loopy plotting, deluxe star power and arresting camera work make the film a joy, and it’s tantalising to think what might have been should original casting plans panned out, and an experimental version, tinted entirely in gold, been released.