So Far, So...

The Poet With An Axe

So welcome to this week’s look at my take on the world of Movies.

Today I’ll be taking a quick gallop through the life & career of one of my favourite Actors - the late great ROBERT MITCHUM.

Well, he was for me THE archetypal Hollywood ‘bad boy’ who didn’t give a fuck what moralising finger-waggers thought of him, what his peers in the movie business thought of him, the press, even the public. He was something I value highly in a fellow human being - authentic.

He was also an extraordinarily dichotomous character.

Born into poverty and almost no consistent formal education he became renowned for his intellect & intelligence. A globally famous superstar Actor, his upbringing and early years meant that he always felt and preferred to be something of a loner. He was - as any great Artist should be - complex, contradictory, a rebellious rule-breaker to his marrow, supremely gifted, original, uncompromising, but also (up to a point) desirous of artistic validation and approbation.

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1917. After his Father died in a railyard accident when Mitchum was only two, his Mother re-married and the already rebellious trouble-making Robert was sent to live with his maternal grandparents in Delaware, where he promptly got expelled from middle school. Eventually he went to live with his older sister in Hell’s Kitchen - Manhattan where, you guessed it, he was expelled from high school there. All of this led to what would become a key chapter in his life as Mitchum literally became a Hobo hopping freight trains across and all over America. All of this before he turned 16.

After escaping a chain gang he returned home briefly to have a serious leg injury tended to, but after recovering Mitchum hit the rails again this time heading for what would be his destiny - the sunshine state of California.

After dallying with some local Theatre in Long Beach and a spell at Lockheed-Martin Mitchum got involved in Movies making a large number of appearances as an extra and bit-part player in fairly low grade fluff. But like so many before and after it was via this period that he learnt his trade, got the experience, wised up. Cut to 1944 and Mitchum landed himself a 7yr contract with RKO. He was off.

His first big hit came with the multi-Oscar nominated CROSSFIRE (1947), and already as this clip shows we can clearly see Mitchum’s laconic laid-back style in evidence, the style for which he’d become so widely known.

This was shortly followed by a favourite performance and indeed movie - OUT OF THE PAST (1947) - a classic film noir in which Mitchum is outstanding and kicks the artistic crap out of the insanely competitive Kirk Douglas. I sure as hell recommend this one to you.

I’m gonna skip along somewhat now in order to maintain this column’s aim to be a brief, time-light affair for the reader and share that after constant work and stardom had him become as Roger Ebert put it - “the soul of film noir” - so it was that Mitchum ended up working on probably his most famous, most iconic, most critically lauded and (for me anyway) most memorable performance. I speak of course of THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)

Mitchum publicly declared on more than one occasion that Charles Laughton was the best director he ever worked with. (in general he hated most every Director he ever worked with, Laughton and David Lean being two exceptions, so there was love there for us Brits for sure) He was in awe of him, loved him, couldn't have dug the cat more if he tried - and boy did it show on the screen in this quite magnificent movie decades ahead of it’s time, so much so that not just the public but even Hollywood (who should have known fucking better) didn’t have a clue what to do with it (hence it insanely being Laughton’s only go in the director’s chair).

Mitchum dominates the film as the psychotic grifter Reverend Harry Powell and frankly the picture should’ve won every Oscar going but the Academy blundered big-time and it ended up not even being nominated (whilst the insipid ‘Marty’ was nominated for eight Oscars winning five). But great Art always wins out in the end, and ‘The Night Of The Hunter’ is rightly revered loved and admired by anyone with any taste in Film.

Mitchum was (in)famously busted for marijuana possession in 1948 after Hollywood figures were targeted and was one of a small number not tipped off about the raids. He spent a week in the county jail, a week he described as being "like Palm Springs, but without the riff-raff". So Mitchum. For large parts of the media this was played out as a huge scandal and for most Hollywood stars would have been career-ending, but Mitchum was perceived by the public as a genuine for real ‘tough guy’ and was so respected and loved therefore that he was able to brush it off and by doing so yet again symbolically stick two fingers up to the establishment.

Perhaps ironically bearing in mind he was such a rebel with a cause, Mitchum would later go on to be a supporter of GOP figures such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. He even wrote a poem for Reagan -

Yes, Mitchum was a Poet, wrote Poetry, read and performed Poetry - indeed was called ‘The Poet With An Axe’. He was a Writer too (he wrote 1958’s ‘Thunder Road’ in which he starred). He was a Composer, writing both the opening song and theme song to ‘Thunder Road’. He was a consummate Creative and Artistic polymath. But he hid it. He didn’t really want you to know this. He didn’t need your approbation in any real or wider sense. He knew what he was, and that he was all he needed. Besides, ever the dichotomy, at the same time as getting his Artist ‘n Artistry on he was boozing, bonking, blazing and brawling in bars. He was fucking LIVING, living it large, living it his fucking way, so fuck you. As said though, this and stuff like his constantly demystifying acting by saying it was actually very easy, didn’t endear him to the establishment and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in particular who would have their poxy, puerile and pathetic revenge.

There are so many fantastic Mitchum performances to choose from I could write tens of thousands of words about the man, but instead of waxing lyrical and long I’ll just mention a few favourites as Mitchum wended his way through the rest of the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s - favourites such as ‘Angel Face’ (1953), ‘Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison’ (1957), ‘The Sundowners’ (1960), ‘Cape Fear’ (1962), ‘El Dorado’ (1967), ‘Ryan’s Daughter’ (1970), ‘The Friends Of Eddie Coyle’ (1973) and ‘The Yakuza’ (1974). I’m sure you'll have many others you love.

ROBERT MITCHUM may not have had the range of Brando, Day-Lewis, or De Niro, but he was imho under-rated and was in fact a quite brilliant Actor. By way of just two examples a Hollywood studio producer back in the early days of Mitchum’s career went to watch him on set and having done so for a few minutes let all and sundry around him know that he thought Mitchum was killing the film as he could hardly hear what he was saying and thought Mitchum was doing nothing. It wasn’t until said producer went into a small screening room to watch some rushes of the movie that he got it, emerging singing Mitchum’s praises and hailing him “the greatest goddam Actor I’ve ever not seen”. The second example would be the fact that Mitchum was only nominated once for an Oscar, a fact that lays bare of course the folly of that particular and political bullshit-fest.

But as well as being a highly skilled, highly technical, massively intelligent, brilliantly talented and authentic Actor, Mitchum was for me without doubt the coolest Actor there’s ever been. No-one gets near. The blueprint. The Grand-daddy. The one everyone else tried to emulate. Name your favourite cool Actor, they stood in his shade.

So I’ll end then by giving the final word to the great man himself.

In 1969 Roger Ebert went to interview Mitchum in Ireland whilst he was filming ‘Ryan’s Daughter’. Toward the end of the interview Ebert asked him

- Are all the rumours about you true?

Mitchum replied

- Oh, sure, every one. Where there's smoke there's fire. Make up some more if you want to. They're all true.

He was a living ‘fuck you’.

He was the coolest dude in the history of everything.

He was, The Poet With An Axe.