A Minute With Mitchum

The appreciation of Robert Mitchum (1917-1997) as one of Hollywood's finest was slow in the making, partly due to the attitude of the man himself. Critics had no compunction about taking Mitchum at his own estimate and at the time he still relished in conveying the unhurried image of a man who didn't quite take his craft seriously and it is hard to argue the actor was dialed in on most of his early appearances. This can be witnessed in films such as Clarence Brown's The Human Comedy (1943); here in this uncredited performance suggested an actor who while beautifully boorish and visually imposing with his solid physique and heavy-lidded good looks, was a tad less inspired in other departments.

In William Castle's When Strangers Marry (1944) where the actor stars vis-a-vis Kim Hunter, we see the first tentative demonstration that Mitchum could be a viable and intelligent performer. But it was in Jacques Tourneur's 1947 wallop-packer Out of the Past that truly established him as one of the most considerable actors of his generation and this would be the making of him as an emblematic film noir figure. Mitchum's remarkable contrasting of both menace and vulnerability was uniquely his own and in the role of an ex-private eye, Jeff Bailey, Mitchum appeared as much a man of thought as a man of action, despite his tough guy accouterments. The trajectory of his career after this was firmly upwards, with solid work in films for Don Siegel (The Big Steal,1949) and John Farrow with Where Danger Lives (1950). But it was Nicholas Ray who in The Lusty Men (1952) coaxed from Mitchum one of his most multi-faceted performances. As injured rodeo rider Jeff McCloud. Mitchum convincingly conveys an unhappy man who struggles to cope with the poor hand that life has dealt him.

Out of the Past and faith in the future, Robert Mitchum proves mettle, check.

But Mitchum, undeniably self-effacing and never ranking himself as a great actor also took on a great deal of grimly uninspiring work, and his lack of involvement in many films was patent. Albeit, Charles Laughton's (one and only stint as director) The Night of the Hunter (1955) had at its core, one of the actor's most horrifying creations, the psychotic pastor - Harry Powell - who is the very embodiment of all evil. In fact, Mitchum did evil staggeringly well, as seen in his later incarnation of the murderous maniac menacing Gregory Peck and family in J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear (1961) was an object lesson in screen terror, infinitely more intense and sinister than Scorsese's 1991 retelling could hope to be with Robert De Niro as the menace. (Sorry Marty).

All together now, all you need is ^

Mitchum's greatest works date from the films he appeared in during the 1940's and 1950s, but in the 1970's he was once again exploited for his authentic noir credentials - effectively in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), 1975's The Yakuza and Farewell My Lady, also from 1975. and perhaps a little humiliatingly three years later in the execrable remake of Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep.