One-Eyed Jacks cut an entire scene because of Marlon Brando getting too drunk

Every movie has deleted scenes. Usually this is due to sensible editing and a filmmaker’s understanding of how their film should flow. Rarer are the deleted scenes where the star and director are unable to physically perform them due to a distorted sense of good performance. In his autobiography “Brando: Songs My Mom Taught Me” Marlon Brando recalled why a “One-Eyed Jacks” scene in which his character was supposed to sexually assault a woman played by Lisa Lu ended up going nowhere:

“I was supposed to get drunk, get out of the rain and rape a Chinese girl. You can’t fake intoxication in a movie. In a play you can, but not in close-up, so I figured the scene would work better when I’m really drunk… It’s never taken much alcohol to get me over the edge, so staggered I spun around and grabbed the girl. Unfortunately I was too drunk to finish the scene, so a few days later I got drunk again and shot it again. It still wasn’t right, and it took me several afternoons to get it right.

Obviously it was never right as the scene didn’t make the final film. While I’m glad we were spared seeing a drunk attacking Brando on screen, Lu and the entire crew endured this several times over the course of production. Nobody should have to deal with that, especially not in a professional environment. The production of One-Eyed Jacks was a long and tedious process that kept Brando from ever directing again. This case is a good example of why it wasn’t really suitable for the performance, even though the finished film is actually pretty good.