The late Hollywood actor Marlon Brando starred in the 1953 film “The Wild One,” one of the most influential of the movies portraying 1950s rebellion. Brando played Johnny, the ultra cool, ultra worldly leader of a motorcycle gang that creates a disturbance in a quiet town. The movie was banned in England until 1968 because of its controversial nature.
The influence that this and similar films (i.e., Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean and The Blackboard Jungle, both from 1955) have had on society cannot be calculated, but it is vast. Brando’s brooding, swaggering, nomadic, hooligan figure was above all a “free spirit.” He lived as he pleased, did what he wanted whenever he wanted.
This is represented by Brando’s dialogue in “The Wild One” with the quiet, hard-working town girl Kathie, the daughter of the sheriff. She asks Johnny where he is going when he leaves her town, and he replies: “Oh man, we just gonna go. … Now if you gonna stay cool, you got to wail. You got to put somethin’ down. You got to make some jive. Don’t you know what I’m talkin’ about?”
What does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything in particular; it is just the language of “the cool ones,” the ones who live simply to do what feels good to them at the moment, the ones to whom right and wrong are strictly relative, who live only for the present and despise the future.
In another scene, Brando’s figure is asked the question, “Hey, Johnny, What are you rebelling against?” While tapping out a rock beat on a jukebox, he replies, “Whaddya got?”
It doesn’t get any cooler than that.
Brando’s figure epitomizes rebellion toward authority. When Kathy asks Johnny why he acts rude toward her father, he replies, “I don’t like cops.” When she says something that he doesn’t like, Johnny says: “Nobody tells me what to do. You keep needlin’ me, and if I want to, I’m gonna take this joint apart. And you’re not gonna know what hit ya.”
Self is the only thing in the world that matters to this character.
By the standards of “The Wild One,” virtue is boring and truth is futile.
When the town sheriff does Johnny a favor and lets him off lightly, Johnny refuses even to say thank you.
Regardless of his surly demeanor, his ungodly lifestyle, and his ridiculous philosophy, Brando’s figure is played up as the hero, the man to be desired, the true free thinker. He is portrayed as wiser than the law authorities and more compassionate than the locals. He is the victim of those who simply don’t understand “cool.”
Brando’s “Wild One” character embodied the rock & roll philosophy, and the rock crowd has paid tribute to him. Brando’s “Johnny of The Wild One” character appears on the front sleeve of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Brando is also mentioned in Neil Young’s song “Pocahontas” and in David Bowie’s “China Girl” and in Bruce Springsteen’s “It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City.”
Brando went on to play in many other films and to become one of the most popular movie stars of all time, and he lived out “The Wild One” philosophy. Brando’s surly onscreen rebellion was a reflection of his real life. He got in trouble at school from a young age and was kicked out of high school for riding a motorcycle through the halls. (He rode his own Triumph motorcycle in “The Wild One.”) He was later expelled from a military academy. Like fellow ’50s rebel actor James Dean, Brando hated his father. He once said: “If my father were alive today, I don’t know what I would do. After he died, I used to think, ‘God, just give him to me alive for eight seconds because I want to break his jaw.’“
He made and spent millions of dollars like there was no tomorrow. (He received $3.7 million for ten minutes on screen in Superman in 1978 and $5 million for 10 minutes in Christopher Columbus in 1992 and $5 million for his 1994 book.)
He treated the marriage vow with complete contempt. The first two of his three marriages lasted only a couple of years or less each. All three wives were pregnant when he married them. He had at least 11 children, many out of wedlock. He bragged of having seduced hundreds of women.
In 1990 his first son, Christian, murdered the boyfriend of his pregnant half-sister, Cheyenne Brando. At the trial Marlon Brando refused to take a religious oath, claiming that he was an atheist.
Cheyenne committed suicide by hanging in 1995. She was only 25 years old.
In 2002 Brando’s ex-girlfriend and one-time maid, Maria Cristina, sued him for $100 million support for the three children she bore him.
During his final years Brando lived as a recluse in his mansion in Los Angeles. He was a glutton and was grossly overweight. He once was hospitalized for eating too much ice cream.
When he played the profligate character “Paul” in “Last Tango in Paris,” Brando said that the character was like him in “a certain desperate melancholy, a gloomy regret, a hatred for oneself.”
He was describing the bitter fruit of “The Wild One” philosophy.
Marlon Brando died on July 1, 2004, and was cremated according to his own instructions.
THE WILD WAY OR THE NARROW WAY
The way of The Wild One leads to destruction, but there is a better way, a narrow way, that leads to life eternal.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Jesus Christ, Matt. 11:28-30).
“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Jesus Christ, Matt. 7:13-14).
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Distributed by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service, a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians.