Hello, my friends, old and new! Today, we have the second and final part of the career of the best movie actor of the 20th century, Marlon Brando.
By the early 1970s, Brando's name was anathema to the Hollywood producers. They thought he was quirky, unpredictable - and most of all, most of his movies in the 1960s lost money. When a young and talented director called Francis Ford Coppola, who had cut his teeth working with Roger Corman, decided to cast Brando as the lead in the screen adaptation of Michael Puzo's best-seller "The Godfather", the studio wouldn't hear of it. In this video, Coppola tells of the fight to cast Brando in the role of Vito Corleone:
Brando wanted to make Don Corleone "look like a bulldog," so he stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool for the audition. For the actual filming, he wore a mouthpiece made by a dentist. This appliance is on display in the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York.
The film, released in 1972, became an instant legend: Stanley Kubrick thought the film had the best cast ever and could be the best movie ever made. Most agreed with him: the film carries an impressive 100% score on Metascore. The New York Times' Vincent Canby spoke for everybody: "One of the most brutal and moving chronicles of American life ever designed within the limits of popular entertainment."
The film also made a sh*tload of money: on a budget of $6,000,000, its cumulative worldwide gross was $245,066,411. The producers were forced to eat crow.
This is the scene of the Bonasera request, at the film's beginning:
Here are Brando and Al Pacino, together, later on in the film:
The Academy recognized the film's magnificence, giving it ten Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and four acting nominations, Brando received his sixth nomination for Best Actor, while Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall were all nominated for Supporting Actor. The Godfather, however, was unlucky to have been up against another brilliant film, Bob Fosse's Cabaret. The major awards were divided between the two movies: The Godfather won for Best Picture, while Bob Fosse won for Best Director. Cabaret won for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, while The Godfather won for Best Adapted Screenplay and - very deservedly - Brando won his second Best Actor Oscar.
... It was Brando who had the last laugh: instead of going to the Oscar ceremony, he sent Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache, in his place, to refuse to accept the Best Actor Oscar, because of Hollywood's treatment of American Indians. The establishment was shocked. This is her speech:
Brando's star value had hit a new high - and instead of cashing in by appearing in a big-budget Hollywood saga, he chose a very small-scale and intimate film, Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1973), a film that achieved notoriety (and lots of ticket sales) for its depiction of sex. This was perhaps Brando's most personal performance, so much so that it embarrassed him, according to his autobiography. Brando had come as close as any actor to being the "auteur" of a film, as the English-language scenes of "Tango" were created by encouraging Brando to improvise. The improvisations were written down and turned into a shooting script, and the scripted improvisations were shot the next day. Pauline Kael, the most influential arbiter of cinematic quality of her generation, said Brando's performance in Last Tango in Paris had revolutionized the art of film. Despite his snub the year before, the Academy simply couldn't avoid nominating him for a Best Actor Oscar - and it did - his seventh such nomination. This is an edit of Brando's best moments in the film:
The Missouri Breaks (1976) was an unusual Western that paired pals Brando and Jack Nicholson. This is the Bathtub Scene:
For the blockbuster film, Superman (1978), he got the (film's producers) Salkind brothers to pony up a then-record $3.7 million against 10% of the gross for 13 days work. This is the trial scene:
He once appeared on TV, on Roots: The Next Generations (1979) - this is Brando with James Earl Jones:
Before cashing his first paycheck for Superman, Brando had picked up $2 million for his extended cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) in a role, that of Col. Kurtz, that he authored on-camera through improvisation while Coppola shot take after take. It was Brando's last bravura star performance. This is a scene with Martin Sheen:
This is his final scene, where he's famously whispering "The Horror":
He co-starred with George C. Scott in The Formula (1980). Here they are, together in a scene:
After coming out of a near-decade-long retirement, he returned with a political drama called A Dry White Season (1989), along with Donald Sutherland, Janet Suzman, and Susan Sarandon. Contrary to those who claimed he now only was in it for the money, Brando donated his entire seven-figure salary to an anti-apartheid charity. His performance was to earn his eighth and final Oscar nomination, his first in the Best Supporting Actor category. Here's a scene from the film:
In The Freshman (1990), Brando had fun doing a comical version of his "Godfather" persona. Here he is in a scene with Matthew Broderick and Bruno Kirby:
He made Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) strictly for the paycheck. This is the trailer:
In Don Juan DeMarco (1994) Brando was paired with Johnny Depp for the first time. They worked well together. Here is a scene:
This is another scene from the film:
They also worked together in The Brave (1997), which Depp directed, as well as starring in. This is the film's trailer:
Brando's final film was The Score (2001), in which he worked with Robert De Niro and Edward Norton. Here's a scene:
Marlon Brando died on July 1, 2004, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, USA. The cause of death was pulmonary fibrosis.
The weekend is here, which means it's time for our countdown and our statistics: At #165 of our Motown countdown, we find Save The Children by the late, great Marvin Gaye. The song was written by Al Cleveland, Renaldo Benson, and Marvin Gaye and issued on Marvin's 1971 album, What's Going On. While not issued as a single in the United States, the song was issued as a single by the Tamla-Motown label in the United Kingdom where it peaked at #41 on the charts in December 1971, whereas the other major US single releases initially failed to chart in Europe. The song was a continuation of the message What's Going On delivered, about love, this time, for the children. Marvin later joked on the liner notes of the album "not let (this song) influence anyone". Marvin recorded both a spoken word recitation of the song and a vocal version mixing the two vocals together featuring Marvin's soft-spoken vocals on one side and his expressive tenor on the other. Here it is:
This is a medley of What's Going On and Save The Children, live in Amsterdam (1976):
The song would later be covered by Diana Ross in a medley featuring the jazz song, Brown Baby, on her 1973 album, Touch Me in the Morning. Here it is:
At #164 we find Marvin Gaye again - and another song from the album What's Going On. The song, Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), written and produced solely by Gaye, was issued as the album's second single, after the title track, and rose to #4 on the Hot 100 and spent 2 weeks at #1 on the US R&B chart. It became one of popular music's most poignant anthems of sorrow regarding the environment.
It was led by Gaye playing piano, strings conducted by Paul Riser and David Van De Pitte, multi-tracking vocals from Gaye and The Andantes, multiple background instruments provided by The Funk Brothers and a leading sax solo by Wild Bill Moore. The distinctive percussive sound heard on the track was a wood block struck by a rubber mallet, drenched in studio reverb.
As the single became his second million-seller from What's Going On, the album started on the soul album charts in the top five and began charging up the pop rankings. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) soon became one of Gaye's most famous songs in his extensive catalog. In 2002 it was his third single recording to win a "Grammy Hall of Fame" Award. This is it:
This is live at Montreux, in 1980:
In 1991, Robert Palmer combined the song in a medley with Gaye's 1976 hit I Want You. Palmer's single reached #16 on the Hot 100 and #9 on the UK Singles Chart. Here it is:
The Strokes released a cover of the song as the B-side to the single You Only Live Once, featuring Eddie Vedder and Josh Homme. This is it:
At #163 is the song 2-4-6-8 by The Jackson 5. Everybody knows their song ABC, but this counterpart from the same 1970 album remains relatively unknown. 2-4-6-8 features one of Michael's most adorable spoken word parts ever recorded: "I may be a little fella / but my heart is as big as Texas!". The song was written by Gloria Jones and Pam Sawyer. Here it is:
At #162 we find another boy-wonder, Stevie Wonder, with his 1965 hit single, Uptight (Everything's Alright). When he recorded the song he was still just 15 years old and had already been with Motown Records for four years. It was the first Stevie Wonder hit single to be co-written by the artist, together with Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby. A notable success, Uptight (Everything's Alright) peaked at #3 on the US Hot 100 in early 1966, at the same time reaching the top of the R&B Singles chart for five weeks. It also peaked at #14 in the UK. Billboard ranked it as the 59th biggest American hit of 1966. An accompanying album, Up-Tight, was rushed into production to capitalize on the single's success. It also garnered Wonder his first two career Grammy Award nominations for Best R&B Song and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.
The single was a watershed in Wonder's career for several reasons. Aside from the number-one hit Fingertips, only two of Wonder's singles had reached the Top 40 of Billboard's Pop Singles chart, (Workout, Stevie Workout reached #33 in late 1963 and Hey Harmonica Man reached #29 Pop in the Summer of 1964) and the fifteen-year-old artist was in danger of being let go. In addition, Wonder's voice had begun to change, and Motown CEO Berry Gordy was worried that he would no longer be a commercially viable artist.
As it turned out, however, producer Clarence Paul found it easier to work with Wonder's now-mature tenor voice, and Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby set about writing a new song for the artist, based upon an instrumental riff Wonder had devised. Nelson George, in Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound, recorded that Wonder had also sought something based on the driving beat of the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, after playing several dates with the Stones on tour and being impressed with the British band. As Wonder presented his ideas, finished or not, "he went through everything," remembered Moy. "I asked, 'Are you sure you don't have anything else?' He started singing and playing 'Everything is alright, uptight.' That was as much as he had. I said, 'That's it. Let's work with that.'" The resulting song, Uptight (Everything's Alright), features lyrics which depict a poor young man's appreciation for a rich girl's seeing beyond his poverty to his true worth.
On the day of the recording, Moy had completed the lyrics but didn't have them in Braille for Wonder to read, and so sang the song to him as he was recording it. She sang a line ahead of him, and he simply repeated the lines as he heard them. In 2008, Moy commented that "he never missed a beat" during the recording. This is it:
This is live on TV in 1966:
This is a cover version by The Supremes:
This is a cover version by Nancy Wilson:
This is a cover version by Brenda Lee:
There is no #161 because there are two songs tied at #160. We'll listen to one of those today - and we'll begin next week's countdown with the other one. Today's song is David Ruffin's 1975 hit single, Walk Away From Love. Ruffin was most famous for his work as one of the lead singers of The Temptations (1964-68) during the group's "Classic Five" period as it was later known. He was the lead voice on such classics as My Girl and Ain't Too Proud to Beg.
Known for his unique raspy and anguished tenor vocals, Ruffin was ranked as one of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine in 2008. Fellow Motown recording artist Marvin Gaye once said admiringly of Ruffin that, "I heard [in his voice] a strength my own voice lacked".
Walk Away From Love, written by Charles Kipps and produced by Van McCoy, was a million-selling single, a #1 hit on the US R&B chart and crossed over to #9 in the Hot 100, as well as peaking at #30 in Canada. The song was his only solo entry into the UK Charts, where it was a Top Ten hit as well, and peaked at #10 in early 1976. The backing vocals were performed by the disco group Faith, Hope & Charity. Here it is:
This is a live version of the song:
This is a reggae version by Bitty McLean:
Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; there was a healthy, 32% rise in the number of visits, compared to last week. Last week's Marlon Brando/Motown story did great, as well as the latest one that I posted yesterday. The one in the middle did well but was slightly less popular than the other two.
As far as countries are concerned, the only major players that actually increased their all-time percentage were the United States and Spain - while France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Turkey are slightly falling behind. The other major players kept their percentages more or less stable. It was a good week for Russia and Australia, though. Meanwhile, the distance between Germany and Canada is getting smaller and if the trend continues, next week Canada will occupy the sixth position on the all-time list.
Here are this week's Top 10 countries:
1. the United States
2. Greece
3. the United Kingdom
4. Russia
5. Australia
6. Canada
7. France
8. Spain
9. Germany
10. Brazil
Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Ghana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!
And here's the all-time Top 10:
1. the United States = 31.5%
2. France = 19.0%
3. the United Kingdom = 11.8%
4. Greece = 8.4%
5. Russia = 2.4%
6. Germany = 1.8%
7. Canada = 1.8%
8. Italy = 1.0%
9. Cyprus = 0.93%
10. Turkey = 0.78%
That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!
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