Posted on 05/29/2007 8:08:08 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Robert Mitchum was an extremely good actor, but he should never be lumped in Ronald Reagan, John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart unless it’s on acting merits alone. Mitchum’s personal life was a disaster, he was a drug addict and constantly on the edge. You couldn’t say that about the other great ones.
His take on that movie:
>>”I gave up being serious about making pictures around the time I made a film with Greer Garson and she took a hundred and twenty-five takes to say no.”<<
Mitchum came out of film noire and in each of these films the director made use of this background. With the right lighting, he was absolutely terrifying without any make up at all. Remmeber that scene in “Cape Fear” ewhere he leaves the whore felling absolutely degraded. Yet they show nothing explicity.
DeNiro with all his tatoos never looked so diabolical as Mitchum did in a suit and tie. Of course it helped that he was playing against Gregory Peck, who personified virtue.
What, is he advertising deodorant now?
I was speaking about the love of his country and having that in common with the others so boldly.
Mitchum made The Winds of War/War and Remembrance worth watching.
My favorite is “Out of the Past”. So many good lines.
“You’re like a leaf that blows from one gutter to the other.”
Great review here:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040718/REVIEWS08/407180301/1023
John Wayne was know to imbibe just a mite.
I read a great bio of Mitchum a year or so ago. His personal life wasn’t something to emulate. Lots of cheating on his wife (though he always came back to her). Lots of drinking and dope smoking. But he was in a lot of great films and he never joined the anti-American crowd or the Commie Party. He appreciated the opportunities America had given him. He wasn’t arrogant like a lot of actors, either. He’d just as soon go out for a burger and a beer with some stage hands as to go to some fashionable party with the limousine crowd.
He seems like a good guy at heart who tragically failed to control some of his lusts.
I enjoyed Mitchem in the Winds of War quiet a lot. But......I believe De Niro outplayed Maximillion Catey in “Cape Fear”.
bump for later
Interesting. I didn’t know that.
Ironic - I just watched “Night of The Hunter” for the first time last night - rented it at the library.
Good flick! “Let me tell you about Hate and Love, here...”
“Night of the Hunter” is great. I really like “Out of the Past” and “Cape Fear”, too. “Angel Face” is a great Mitchum film that a lot of people have forgotten about today. And “Track of the Cat” is weird!
He thought his best film was “Heavens Knows, Mr. Allison” with Deborah Kerr.
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