Movies - TV
Rod Serling Wrote An Early Draft Of Marlon Brando's Best Western
By DEBOPRIYAA DUTTA
Marlon Brando's sole directing job, "One-Eyed Jacks," began as an adaptation of Charles Neider's classic western, "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones."
Producer Frank P. Rosenberg hired a string of writers to flesh out a compelling story that would do justice to Neider's vision. Among them was Rod Serling.
Serling, who was a few years away from creating "The Twilight Zone," remained mostly faithful to Neider's novel. Unfortunately, Rosenberg rejected Serling's adaptation.
Not much is known about Serling's screenplay draft except that he was involved with the project until Rosenberg passed it on to director/screenwriter Sam Peckinpah.
When Brando finally took over the project years later, the story had little resemblance to Neider's novel, as the screenplay was a revised culmination of all the writers' work.