Al Pacino first saw “On the Waterfront” at a triple feature.
The 14-year-old was so blown away that he sat through the two other movies again just so he could watch Marlon Brando one more time.
“I related to that movie in a way I’d never related to anything before,” Pacino recalls in “Brando,” the three-hour, two-part documentary premiering at 7 p.m. Tuesday on Turner Classic Movies.
Pacino, who went on to star with Brando in “The Godfather,” is just one of a dozen big-name actors who testify to Brando’s position as the greatest film actor of his or any generation.
“I worked very hard to never impose my own personal opinion on the documentary,” said Leslie Greif, the film’s executive producer. “I wanted to bring Brando to the world through his friends, family and colleagues. Instead of having a narrator, I wanted to describe the man through the persons who knew him.”
To that end, Greif interviewed some of Hollywood’s biggest names (John Travolta, Johnny Depp, Martin Scorsese), as well as Brando’s childhood friends from rural Illinois, who describe the kid they knew as “Bud.”
Also included are many clips and some rarities, such as Brando’s screen tests for “Rebel Without a Cause” (he lost the role to James Dean) and “The Godfather.”
If it all makes you want to see Brando’s films, well, you can. Here’s the TCM schedule:
Tuesday
7 p.m.: “Brando, Part I”
8:30 p.m.: “The Men”
11:30 p.m.: “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Wednesday
1:45 a.m.: “Guys and Dolls”
4:30 a.m.: “Teahouse of the August Moon”
7 p.m.: “Brando, Part II”
8:30 p.m.: “The Wild One”
11:30 p.m.: “On the Waterfront”
Thursday
1:30 a.m.: “Sayonara”
4 a.m.: “The Missouri Breaks”
