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At the end of the 50s, by which time he had become an icon of rebellion, Marlon Brando founded a production company called Pennebaker. He wanted to make a Western and spent ages developing scripts. Then someone gave him Charles Neider’s novel The Authentic Death of Henry Jones about a bank robber called Rio deserted by his friend who has the Oedipal name of Dad Longworth. He immediately took to it and said at the time “our early heroes were not 100% brave all of the time. My role is a man who is tough and vain and childish”. Stanley Kubrick was to direct, and Karl Malden, who had been in A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront with Brando, was to play the friend Dad. When Kubrick saw the finished script which was part-written by his long time collaborator Calder Willingham and Sam Peckinpah, he bottled out saying that he did not understand what it was about. Brando tried Sidney Lumet and Elia Kazan. Both refused so he decided to direct it himself.