Robert Mitchum C/D, S/D

i really really need this in my life
http://www.317x.com/albums/m/robertmitchum/enlargement.jpg

Deep down, Robert Mitchum is a wanderer, and he probably would have got to Trinidad anyway, but actually it was Hollywood that sent him there, "on location" for two feature films... to Port of Spain, a colorful and sunlit place where people have come from many corners of the earth, mingling accents and spilling out their hearts in a unique musical idiom called Calypso.

In Trinidad, the sharp Mitchum ear was quick to hear the subtle coloration of word and melody that gives this native song its special sound. And, expert mimic that he is, he was quick to give it voice, in every characteristic detail.

For ten months of the kind he likes best, Mitchum followed his Calypso trail, listening acutely to local champions like Lord Melody and Mighty Sparrow, memorizing newer and more intricate lyrics in some small native bistro, absorbing the rhythmic excitement of such festivities as the great annual Jump Up Carnival.

Returning to the States, he was happy enough merely to spread the gospel of the Calypso style among the entertainment fraternity. But show-wise listeners soon recognized the quality of the Mitchum demonstrations, and insisted Bob record the songs himself.

The result: this album.

Not all the songs he sings here are absolutely as he first heard them (the censor wouldn't stand for it). A couple of the tunes are already well known; a couple are even newly written for the occasion. But every one has the authentic flavor, the beat and the vitality of the real Caribbean thing. All are products of great talent and great enthusiasm. Calypso, Robert Mitchum says with considerable authority, is like so...

So search above all:

Pursued - a beautiful movie, essentially a noir Western

Out of the Past - a noir movie with incredible pacing; it starts out slow, languorous, and picks up very gradually. Incredible.

The Lusty Men - Mitchum's best movie? Life in the rodeo. Directed by Nick Ray.

Angel Face - Another contender. A concentrated, completely perverse noir with Jean Simmons. Mitchum basically plays a slightly dim hunk of beef here. Directed by Otto Preminger. Hard to find.

River of No Return - A really elegant, if none too intense, Western with Marilyn Monroe. A supremely relaxed Mitchum. Another Preminger film. Astonishingly fluid long takes.

Night of the Hunter - Well duh. Has Mitchum singing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms."

Thunder Road - The ultimate Mitchum movie. (The Bruce Springsteen song was named after it.) He wrote the story about a indie moonshiner battling the mob. It isn't fancy at all, and cuts to the quick. Kind of a miracle.

El Dorado - Pretty awesome Howard Hawks movie with both Mitchum AND John Wayne underplaying. Also James Caan. A Man's movie.

Other films of interest:

Gung Ho! - a mostly terrible WWII film which is insanely racist. But it features a very young (and almost skinny!) Mitchum in a tiny part.

Crossfire - a pretty good film noir, Mitchum is a police sergeant

Macao - directed by Joseph von Sternberg. Not Sternberg or Mitchum's best, but pretty good. Nice to look at.

Track of the Cat - a very weird Freudian psychodrama (with a touch of allegory) set in the frontier. With Teresa Wright (yes!) and Tab Hunter (huh?). Pretentious but fascinating.

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison - A great Cinemascope film. An unusually moralistic film for Mitchum. He falls in love with a nun played by Deborah Kerr.

HOme from the Hill - Sort of a family melodrama set in Texas, in a mode not entirely dissimilar from Written on the Wind but much less angsty and perverse. Pretty good.

The Sundowners - Yay! Kerr and Mitchum again, as a family of Australian sheep herders!

The Grass Is Greener - a drawing-room comedy with Cary Grant and Kerr again. Grant and Mitchum seem to be in alternate universes. Pretty good.

Cape Fear - The movie as a whole isn't quite up to its reputation, but Mitchum is fearsome.

Ryan's Daughter - Mitchum cast against type. Wearing glasses no less! This is an English picture. It's pretty great, actually, in a overripe way.

James Agee hated him, thought he looked comatose, as I recall. His acting style is really modern, I suspect it looks even better today than it did at the time. Nicholas Cage would be nothing without his example!

One thing that's sad is when you think how much cigarettes contributed to his mystique, and then realize that he died of lung cancer.

Also: he wrote an oratorio! (Not a calypso oratorio though.)

That picture of him during the sentencing for his marijuana bust is priceless.

ha, see a recent item by me on Freaky Trigger (Do You See section) giving another angle on this.

http://www.westworld.com/~mmw/rm/price/western.gif

"I kill you with muzzleloaders"

"Years ago, I saved up a million dollars from acting—a lot of money then—and I spent it all on a horse farm in Tucson. Now when I go down there, I look at the place and I realize my whole acting career adds up to a million dollars worth of horseshit."

Yes, but his head is cocked! Where is that covered in his harsh taxonomy?

Where are you getting this quotes, TH?

in Angel Face with Jean Simmons

---

http://members.aol.com/PJaySin/mitchum2.jpg

in River of No Return with Marilyn Monroe

"Somebody says, 'We really want you to do this script.' And I say, 'I'd need an awful lot of money in front to do that one.' And that never seems to be a problem. The less I like the script, the higher my price. And they pay. They may pay in yen, but they pay. Not that I'm a complete whore, understand. There are movies I won't do for any amount. I turned down 'Patton' and I turned down 'Dirty Harry.' Movies that piss on the world. If I've got $5 in my pocket, I don't need to make money that fucking way, daddy."

One of the things Dean Martin used to say was, who gives less of a shit, Kotto, or Mitchum? And I think Mitchum kind of outdid me. We had these bungalows together, right next door and I went to get him one night to go eat. I go over there and knock on the door. He said, "Who the hell is it?" and I said "Kotto." And I go in, and he's just sitting there on the edge of the bed, and I notice that the room is dark, and it's cold. And I said, what are you doing here in the dark, and he said, there's no lights. I said why is it so cold, and he said, there's no heat. So I said, Bob, why don't you get someone to turn on the heat? Why don't you get someone to turn on the lights? And he just sat there on the edge of the bed, and said, "Fuck em." He would have gone on right that way. That's how much he didn't care.

"I've been called a cynic, which I surely can't deny because I am a cynical-style girl. I happen to believe a certain amount of cynicism is inherent in the beast. But there's a little romanticism in there, too. And more than a little hedonism. You can use this to sum it all up: I know what I'm doing is bullshit. But I've got to admit, it's also a pretty good ride."

"The Big Steal" is a great film, with William Bendix and Jane Greer. He calls Greer "chiquita" during the whole movie. Very nice.

"Calypso Is Like So" is awesome, I just got a brand-new Mitchum CD with that entire work on it. Also, Robert Mitchum, for what it's worth, did the best-ever version of "Sunny."

One of the greatest all-rounders ever. The deodorant works good too.

seriously every film noir should end with every major character hospitalized for lung cancer.

"there's a way to lose more slowly."

"Among the likes of Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, and Ronald Reagan, he was like a switchblade on a plate of cupcakes."

"Mitchum is always playing a presence, a moral creature, incarcerated by the text, and when it works, he burns a hole in the screen, invests the vacant platitudes of professional screenwriting with something dark and strange, simply because he is not playing by the rules: he is obeying the rules, of course, as any convict must. He is hitting his marks, making the moves and saying the words, but he is not acting by the the rules, not deriving the subtext from the text."

After all, every one of these threads devoted to an oldtime actor usually has another actor pop up on them trying to steal the limelight, even the RIP ones.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n02/cart01_.html
I recently finally got to see Thunder Road. I can't seen to get hold of The Yakuza in the UK.. anyone got any ideas?

I like OOTP fine, but even after seeing it a few times, I have trouble getting completey absorbed in it- it is a little too long, elaborate, understated, laid back and abstract in a way, it is almost a mannerist take on noir. I actually prefer the other Mitchum/Greer teamup, The Big Steal- it's zips along at a fast pace, has got a great cast, and has some great stuff about Mexico.

http://www.movingimage.us/site/screenings/mainpage/critics.html

And has no one mentioned The Friends of Eddie Coyle?

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/dvd_review.asp?ID=1078

Haha, I already own "Macao" twice!

Macao is up there with His Kind Of Woman for Quality Mitchum performance in a crazy film.

Ryan's Daughter is a very atypical Mitchum performance - he's good in it.. I wouldn't vouch for the rest of the film though

:(

How wasted is Mitchum in this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-YE76CfA_E

Finally got a hold of the Lee Server bio. It's very good, lots of good anecdotes that seem like scenes from Mitchum movies.

^^^ Robert Mitchum on the Dick Cavett show. It's in seven parts but well worth the viewing, he's in pretty great form. Drinking stories, stuff about the pot bust, his early life (chain gang, early jobs), and some stuff on acting that's slightly less one-sided than his soundbytes on the topic usually feel.

I'm ashamed to be caught reading the AICN forums, but this story was worthy of reposting...

a story that Burt Reynolds told once on DINNER FOR FIVE: Robert Mitchum was a classic Hollywood tough guy, and because of that, he ended up running into a lot of people who wanted to fight him. Not because they didn't like him, but because he had that aura, that label, and they wanted to be able to tell their friends, "I went toe-to-toe with Mitchum." So one night, Mitchum and Reynolds and a couple of other people were at a bar, and a guy came up to Mitchum and just kept giving him shit, egging him on. Reynolds said that Mitchum kept his cool and kept telling the guy that he had no interest in fighting. The guy kept pressing and pressing and pressing finally bellied up against Mitchum, who was right at the bar. Without looking over, Mitchum grabbed the guy by the hair on the back of his head, slammed his face down on the bar, and just stood there while the dude crumpled to the ground unconscious. Then, Mitchum looked at the bartender and said, calmly, "Hey buddy? This guy fell and hurt himself."

'What makes a woman good in bed?'
'Proximity'

Criterion releases The Friends of Eddie Coyle in May!

http://www.criterion.com/films/1426

Coyle out tomorrow; booklet has a rather astounding 1973 Rolling Stone profile of Bob on the set.

Read this on 'Shadowplay' about Mitchum.

“On 'The RKO Story' there’s a teriffic anecdote from Robert Mitchum about the shooting of ['Angel Face']. There was a scene where he was required to slap Jean Simmons. Otto kept asking for take after take, and Mitchum quickly surmised that Otto liked to watch Jean getting slapped. So he turned the tables and slapped Otto. There were no further retakes.”

Still haven't jumped on the Eddie Coyle bandwagon.

I had forgotten that he does the Boston accent in it; only slips a couple times, to my ears. They changed the pivotal snitch from the book, tho.

Steven Keats is really good (his film debut) as a gunrunner named Jackie Brown (obv Tarantino a fan).

i forgot how many great movies he is in.

"i like thye part in "out of the past" where douglas asks if mitchum wants a smoke, and mitchum holds up his lit cigarette and says, "smoking.""

-- this is still one of the great lines ever.

watched Out of the Past last week, as i'm stumbling through a Noir phase, terrific movie.

Read this on 'Shadowplay' about Mitchum.

“On 'The RKO Story' there’s a teriffic anecdote from Robert Mitchum about the shooting of ['Angel Face']. There was a scene where he was required to slap Jean Simmons. Otto kept asking for take after take, and Mitchum quickly surmised that Otto liked to watch Jean getting slapped. So he turned the tables and slapped Otto. There were no further retakes.”

― James Morrison, Monday, May 18, 2009 Bookmark

They showed the RKO story about two months ago on BBC Four. Jean was also interviewed about it. Otto was a bloody creep.

Mitchum was one of the more fascinating interviewees (one of quite a few actually, really interesting to see former stars of stage and screen being interviewed about things they did when they had nothing in particular to promote). Very amusing when he was asked about 'auteurs' and the like. Didn't sound like he gave a shit about anything AT ALL. A biog and box set might need to set me straight one of these day.

I thought this was revived at first because Channel Four had been running one Mitchum film a day this week. Taped one Western from '47 which I'll see over the bank Holiday.

And, as am says, lots of great movies -- happened to catch a screening of Where Danger Lives, a noir type with Mitchum having it act as semi-conscious for much of it

last night I saw Wellman's Track of the Cat, which Bob isn't in all that much after the first half hour, playing a nasty eldest brother on a ranch. Really weird Western fsmily melodrama, with a menacing offscreen jaguar but mostly a lotta neo-Steinbeck/O'Neill sturm und drang, and a big part for Beulah Bondi as the grim prayerful matriarch.

another gabbneb near-miss for you - i wanted to see the mt rainier shooting

Love the story in Baby, I Don't Care, about when Mitchum and his brother headed West to live with their sister in LA. On this trip, it was the brother who was caught by a railroad bull and put on a chain gang. When the brother finally arrived, dirty and disheveled, Mitchum, who was lying in the tub, soaking in a bubble bath, smoking a cigar and reading Hollywood Confidential, turned to him and said "What kept you?"

Watched Angel Face the other night. Mitchum looked like he was blowing bongs throughout the whole movie. Nice ending and no sympathetic characters (except for Mitchums girlfriend).

just saw eddie coyle for the first time. pretty interesting movie. terrible score, like everyone says, but otherwise i dug it

There was a scene where he was required to slap Jean Simmons

In the movie Simmons is distraught and Mitchum, who has never met Simmons before, slaps her because it's the prescribed way to stop hysteria. Love how Mitchum makes Simmons feel guilty for slapping him back.

at that point Mitchum had been in the movie maybe two minutes and his first act is to roughly grab a crying woman and slap her wtf

excerpt of the RS piece in the Coyle Criterion:

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1148

<3 mitchum

Wise up, cranapple.

what's the thoughts on Farewell, My Lovely ? will be watching soon.

The Lusty Men - Mitchum's best movie? Life in the rodeo. Directed by Nick Ray.

this was great -- it was on TCM this morning. perfect mitchum typecasting as an aging sleaze/has-been. i was rooting for the wife though; she was the only one with the good sense to know that rodeo riding is not a safe or sustainable way to make a living. SMH at the men.

saw Friends of Eddie Coyle a few weeks back. pretty good altho kinda predictable, in a very bleak way

Friends of Eddie Coyle is great in a period 70s kind of way. Quite entertaining too.

I tend to like these low-key 70s action capes - Taking of Pelham, Charlie Varrick, etc.

capers

"Sure I was glad to see John Wayne win the Oscar … I`m always glad to see the fat lady win the Cadillac on TV, too.”

“These kids only want to talk about acting method and motivation; in my day all we talked about was screwing and overtime.”

^^My new facebook status.

I enjoyed sauntering around Savannah 2 weeks ago in my hat and saying "counselor" a lot

Those quotes = genius! Where are they from?

Looks like somebody put them up at imdb, among other places.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2KzfMDtUq4

Bruce Weber working on a doc, showed 30 mins in NYC the other night:

What he showed of “Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast” (the title comes from a smoky 1960s ballad recorded by Julie London) certainly bore at least a surface resemblance to “Let’s Get Lost,” with its sometimes grainy black and white cinematography and its juxtaposition of the aging but still magnetic Mitchum with images of the young, beautiful, hypnotic screen star. The older Mitchum appeared to be less of a presence in the film than the gaunt, wasted Baker was in “Let’s Get Lost” — Mitchum, a “reluctant star” in Mr. Weber’s words, was also a somewhat reluctant interview subject — and the whirl of images included proportionally more scenes from his films, including the famous (“Night of the Hunter”) and the obscure (“Home From the Hill,” “Girl Rush”).

Mr. Weber’s focus on seduction as practiced by sensitive bad boys in the Baker and Mitchum mold was highlighted in a funny and slightly unsettling scene of the elder Mitchum working his game on the actress Frances Fisher, gazing at her in a restaurant booth and purring: “Forgive me for staring at you. I’m just studying your attitude.” Later a famous shot from “Night of the Hunter,” of the 4-year-old Pearl sitting in the lap of Mitchum’s charismatic, psychopathic preacher, cuts to Ms. Fisher in the booth, snuggling a little closer to Mitchum.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/a-short-sneak-peek-at-a-new-robert-mitchum-documentary/

The Lusty Men coming to Warner Archive

TCM is running Mitchum movies all day tomorrow.

After catching Angel Face recently, I finally read Baby, I Don't Care -- what an amazing book, so many mind-blowing stories.

Brattle in Cambridge MA running a centennial tribute

http://www.brattlefilm.org/category/calendar-2/repertory-series/robert-mitchum-centennial-tribute/

TCM is running Mitchum movies all day tomorrow.

After catching /Angel Face/ recently, I finally read /Baby, I Don't Care/ -- what an amazing book, so many mind-blowing stories.

24-film retro at the NYFF; I've been pining to see The Wonderful Country for awhile now...

https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2017/daily/robert-mitchum-retrospective-set-for-nyff55/

Mitchum—whose Captain Hunnicutt was intended for Clark Gable—got along very well with Minnelli (they’d worked together a decade earlier on Undercurrent), but less well with his younger co-star George Peppard, who asked Mitchum if he’d studied the Stanislavsky Method. “No,” said Mitchum, “but I’ve studied the Smirnoff Method.”

5 films this weekend in LA

http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/tough-guys-finish-first-a-robert-mitchum-centennial

looks like we're getting a few at the Castro next week too - Thunder Road, Friends of Eddie Coyle (personal fave), Cape Fear, and Night of the Hunter

I don't appear to have ever linked my Coyle review so

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-friends-of-eddie-coyle

think about this a lot

Robert Mitchum giving perfect answers to terrible questions pic.twitter.com/PfnQxfOfOx

— Pierre Étaixxxtacion (@NoChorus) November 11, 2016

the best

I have no memory of this... from Wiki

In 1987, Mitchum was the guest-host on Saturday Night Live, where he played private eye Philip Marlowe for the last time in the parody sketch, "Death Be Not Deadly". The show ran a short comedy film he made (written and directed by his daughter, Trina) called Out of Gas, a mock sequel to Out of the Past. (Jane Greer reprised her role from the original film.)

100 BOB 100

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/177952/Out-of-the-Past-Movie-Clip-I-m-Not-Smart-Anymore.html

great Coyle review, Morbs, though I think you're a bit too hard on Jackie Brown's pimpin' ride.

I have no memory of this... from Wiki

/In 1987, Mitchum was the guest-host on Saturday Night Live, where he played private eye Philip Marlowe for the last time in the parody sketch, "Death Be Not Deadly". The show ran a short comedy film he made (written and directed by his daughter, Trina) called Out of Gas, a mock sequel to Out of the Past. (Jane Greer reprised her role from the original film.)/

Well here's this from his opening monologue at least

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/robert-mitchum-monologue/n9636?snl=1

this bio by Server is pretty incredible but I have to say I wasn't expecting so many stories about Bob pissing on things/people.

plz say Otto Preminger was one

haha no (how do you feel about Ava Gardner?)

I'm up to the 70s now and seemed off that there was no mention of his participation in these, which seem particularly hilarious/ironic given his lifelong stoner-dom and that he was doing things like passing out bricks of hash to college students at the time.

Didn't Mitchum get pretty nutjob-right-wing as a geezer? That is barely touched on in the Server bio iirc but it seems like I've seen other references. I'd love to be wrong!

I feel like Server addresses it but appropriately contextualizes it as well - he notes that he started getting chummy with John Wayne, recounts anecdotes from others about him being rabidly pro-Vietnam War/indulging conspiracy theories about LBJ, mouthing off about Jews and "negroes" etc. At the same time, it's clear that Mitchum was not a man of deep convictions about anything, including politics, at all beyond having the freedom to do whatever the fuck he felt like at any given moment. (Granted the latter can correctly be interpreted as a deeply political position based on white male entitlement if you want to go down that route)

does not seem like a "political" guy, as patchy as my knowledge of his life is.

He often claimed he was not a pal of other actors in interviews, eg "I just work with those cats."

Anyway I bought tix to see The Wonderful Country and Pursued at NYFF, and found a videotape of Blood on the Moon on the street in Williamsburg.

still, there's no reactionary like an old bohemian.

he liked other drunks/stoners

curious about Pursued but need to watch Out of the Past first

never seen it? It's my favorite film noir and I have it out of the library right now.

great movie. kind of amazing that two of the four top-billed actors are still with us (Kirk Douglas and Rhonda Fleming.)

yeah I dunno why I've never seen it before

Mitchum's hatred of Kirk Douglas in the Server bio is p entertaining

probably helped

Kirk was not yet a star at that point

apparently he still hated him years later on The Way West too

Yeah from that Server bio it seems his middle aged republicanism was a little sincerity and a lot "let's fuck with ppl", there's an anecdote about him telling journalists that he'd been accepted into the CIA or something and then afterwards just breaking into laughter with his secretary.

Around the same time there's an anecdote of Mitchum getting high with some youngster and listening to Sgt.Pepper's and when the youth tried to earnestly explain to him why this music was Meaningful, just smiling and going "I know, man". Person recounting the anecdote suitably ashamed at having thought they were hipper than Mitchum.

Blood On The Moon is a good 'un, Morbius.

Sgt. Pepper anecdote was v funny, Mitchum's love of records + books come across as p endearing

whoa I just started the server bio last night. The world of famous touring child poets is one of those bizarre cultural cul de sacs that seems lost forever

That Server book is great. God, I love a good Hollywood biography. Actually, compiling a list of such would make a great thread.

Yeah, I need more of those, too. Should track Server's Ava Gardner bio down? I've not seen much of her stuff. David Niven autobio is supposed to be real good, too.

Wish I still had my copy of this:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51tuSklfJ2L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Server's Ava bio very good as well, maybe not quite as essential as the Mitchum.

Never knew you could smell booze breath from a YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7aex9xj8rQ

Pursued, jeezus! Freud on the range. I bet it looked like pretentious wankery on the page too, but then Raoul Walsh and James Wong Howe worked their magic.

also saw The Wonderful Country, RM as a hired-gun fugitive on both sides of the Rio Grande. Very much slept-on, beautiful color lensing by Alex Phillips and Floyd Crosby. Julie London fine as a cavalry wife with straying eyes, and Satchel Paige as a buffalo soldier!

!

Not seen Pursued, but for Mitchum + Freud on the range, I very much recommend avoiding the hysterical Track Of The Cat.

yeah, that's a wild one. it's worth seeing.

Worth seeing Track of the Cat just for the beautiful vivid red of Mitchum's coat

I've got The Racket out of the library, and I re-watched the quite entertaining The Sundowners last week

still haven't watched Ryan's Daughter!

The Sundowners is a lot of fun, yeah. Feels like a live action Disney movie at times.

roundup of pieces tied to centenary

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4995-the-daily-nyff-2017-robert-mitchum

I ordered River of No Return from interlibrary loan.

I have the Macao DVD out right now -- I'm p sure I've seen it? -- which also has Robert Osborne's TCM joint interview with RM and Jane Russell.

watched Farewell, My Lovely last night - v solid, good cast, suitably grotesque at various points (helps that the general color palette of the movie is all lurid greens and reds)

Jack O'Halloran in a speaking role!

Sylvia Miles has basically done that character in NYC nightlife for the last 40 years.

I found it a little strange that one of the book's male characters was turned into a lesbian madam (whose receipt of a punch, then demise, we get to applaud).

also Sylvester Stallone in a nonspeaking role xp

I found it a little strange that one of the book's male characters was turned into a lesbian madam (whose receipt of a punch, then demise, we get to applaud)

yeah I noticed this too, p stupid

the nervous-nellie queer who gets offed was Chandler's creation, that was enough

surprised Miles got an Oscar nom out of that! She was good but I didn't think it was *that* nuanced a role or anything.

soused women in crime and/or lowlife circles often got nominated

(plus she was familiar to them from Midnight Cowboy)

soused women in crime and/or lowlife circles often got nominated

aka Susan Tyrell during the same period

yeah

Sylvia Miles' two Oscar nominated roles = total 14 minutes onscreen

btw Mitchum's sole nomination: The Story of G.I. Joe, one of his earliest 'A picture' roles

so eff the AAs

well yeah

Best supporting actress in the '70s was even more scattershot (and happily so, imo) than best actress.

"Sure I was glad to see John Wayne win the Oscar … I`m always glad to see the fat lady win the Cadillac on TV, too.”

lmao

Checked the Server bio out of the library; I'm pleased to see that his prose is better than the average star biographer's.

What'd you expect?

Crap.

Man, "The Wonderful Country" is something else. Up there for me with "One Eyed Jacks" as one of the great ugly duckling '50s Westerns.

Mitchum's scene where he turns down his assignment from Pedro Armendariz is great

Yes. And he got some nice new threads out of him before splitting :)

man I'd forgotten the hype around The Winds of War. The end of the epic TV movie era came witth a bang.

Even at the very height of my Mitchum obsession I saw a DVD box of that and thought "life's too short".

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-comment-podcast-robert-mitchum/

River of No Return, wasn't nuts about that one.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, August 18, 2003 5:29 PM (

agreed

Liked a few moments but yeah

Notable Mitchum character names from the 1940s:

Quentin 'Horse' Gilford
Tate Winters
Henchman Randall
Dirk Mason
Panhandle Mitchell
Ben Slocum
Trigger Dolan
Henchman Rip Austin
Seaman Chuck Ryan
Mickey Halligan
Dying Soldier - 'I'm All Right'
Nick Drago
'Pig-Iron' Matthews
Jim Lacy aka Nevada
Pecos Smith
Jeb Rand

The Winds of War was a miniseries, right? i'm sure Bob snored through it.

when he wasn't freezing his ass off and getting eaten by ticks during the year (!) of filming, according to the bio

And that presumably doesn't include War and Remembrance.

I do recall David Letterman was tickled when TWOW won an Emmy and the producer gruffly thanked the network for "ponying up the dough!"

speaking of those I can't believe Herman Wouk is still alive.

Dan Milner: Whenever I have nothing to do and I can't think, I always iron my money.
Lenore Brent: What d'ya do when you're broke?
Dan Milner: When I'm broke, I press my pants.

video essay

https://filmkrant.nl/video/thinking-machine-29-english/

30 of his films on Criterion right now.

Enjoyed the Lusty Men. He’s great in it

Yeah, like that one too.

Just watched the two films he did with director John Farrow:

Where Danger Lives a simple but very good noir, featuring Faith Domergue. Mitchum is semi-zonked for much of the film after getting brained by Claude Rains.

His Kind of Woman an odd 2-hour long film that starts as straight noir and then Vincent Price's ham actor character hijacks it and turns it into a comedic spoof. Has some cool interior design.

And then watched Track of the Cat which is florid and awkward and oh-so-1950s. Not for me.

Also watched Angel Face which is a little nutty but I liked seeing Jean Simmons in the bad girl role, it seems to go against character.

*against type I mean

Watched out of the past oh Saturday. Absolute stone cold classic. Five bags of popcorn and a bunch of cigarettes for Bob Mitchum to smoke

Feel like I live-blogged a stretch of His Kind of Woman once, maybe upthread.

Robert Mitchum C/D, S/D

Howzabout the, um, sequel to Out of the Past, The Big Steal?

I highly recommend Pursued which is not in the CC series

His Kind of Woman an odd 2-hour long film that starts as straight noir and then Vincent Price's ham actor character hijacks it and turns it into a comedic spoof. Has some cool interior design

I posted almost exactly this earlier this morning on the noir thread! I saw this movie eons ago, 1980s I believe, and in the intervening years I forgot the title, the plot, and the stars. All I could remember was the fantastic mid-mod set design of the Mexican lodge, and that the action later moved to a boat. Finally tracked it down last night! Allegedly it was Howard Hughes' meddling and reshoots that led to the incoherent combination of violent hypodermic attacks and shipboard slapstick in the finale.