[Twotone]

Steyn at the movies...

[ClearCase_guy]

Great actor. Love “Out of the Past”.

[be-baw]

Never cared much for Mitchum, but an interesting article nonetheless.

Compare Mitchum’s role in El Dorado to Dean Martin’s in Rio Bravo (essentially the same movie done twice). The latter was far superior.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Great article. Thanks for posting. I knew Steyn was a good music critic, but didn’t know he reviewed actors and movies. I haven’t seen Out of the Past — have to add it to my Netflix queue.

Really liked his The Night of the Hunter and Cape Fear.

Mitchum sure had an interesting life pre-actor.

[Fiji Hill]

Robert Mitchum was also a good singer.

The Ballad of Thunder Road (1958)

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Back when men in Hollywood were men

[Vesparado]

Wasn’t it Mitchum who said “Acting can’t be too hard; after all, dogs do it”?

[Rummyfan]

In Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter he was crazy scary.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Mitchum was once interviewed by film critic Robert Osborne. When Mitchum was asked what he thought about about one of his famous movies, he replied "I never saw it". Dumbfounded, Osborne asked him why not. Mitchum replied, "I just make 'em, I don't watch 'em."

[llevrok]

Mitchum is alleged to have said to his wife when heading to Hollywood - “Stick with me baby. I’ll have you farting through silk in no time!”

[sparklite2]

How could Mark get through all that verbiage without mentioning “Thunder Road?” which included Mitchum’s son in the cast and the unlikely Keely Smith who looked like a plumper version of Shelley Duval. Mitchum wrote, produced, and is said to have directed the movie.

[Oatka]

Somewhere (IMDB I think) it was mentioned that Mitchum had a photographic memory. He’s get a script, thumb through it muttering “Uh huh, uh huh”, put it down and never refer to it again, and flawlessly deliver his lines.

In some other report, a critic sniffed that he wasn’t a real actor as he was “just being himself” - as if that was a bad thing.