DVD Review: Robert Mitchum - The Signature Collection

By Frankie Dees Feb 5, 2007, 12:30 GMT

This collection covers Robert Mitchum’s career over of a span of 23 years and a variety of roles and while none of these titles have much of a reputation outside of cinephile circles, there are some nice, unheralded gems in here for Mitchum and film fans alike.

Warner Brothers collects a hodgepodge of lesser-known Mitchum films for the signature collection that include two easily disposable films in ‘Macao’ and ‘The Good Guys and The Bad Guys’, a fascinating if flawed film noir in ‘Angel Face’ and three genuine unheralded classics with ‘Home From the Hill’, ‘The Sundowners’ and ‘The Yakuza’.

Robert Mitchum’s visage and voice is unmistakable, a sure sign of a movie star. Sporting a droopy-eyed and small-chinned face situated on a lumbering, big-shouldered frame, Mitchum looked like a caricature carved out of granite. It was in this dichotomy of features and frame, his sleepy-eyed gaze with a voice that sounded like he gargled with rocks every morning that led to a long and varied career where he was usually cast as the cool-cat heavy, slinking through films with a near unrivaled machismo in the popular genres of the period mostly consisting of film noirs, westerns and war pictures.

Some of the best pictures in these genres were helped immensely by his presence. ‘Out of the Past’ and ‘Crossfire’ (both 1947) are defining examples of the film noir genre, 1966’s ‘El Dorado’ in which he is paired up with John Wayne is a fine western and John Huston’s great ‘Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison’ (1957) lent the war picture a real resonance with his pairing with Deborah Kerr (in which he re-teams for 1960’s ‘The Sundowners’ in this collection) yet it’s when Mitchum took chances that one could truly see the immense talent. In what is arguably his best film “The Night of the Hunter” (1955), Mitchum turns in his best performance as faux-preacher Harry Powell, one of the most iconic and creepy persona’s ever put on screen…man, could this guy play a villain, because along with Max Cady from ‘Cape Fear’ one gets the distinct impression he was really enjoying himself.

While the six films collected here shouldn’t be mistaken for his best work like some of the above, there’s some great stuff here for Mitchum fans with 2 RKO pictures, 2 WB pictures and an MGM title where we can watch him age stylishly from 1952 to 1975.

Reviewed by year of release, we start off with 1952’s ‘Angel Face’ directed by Otto Preminger who helmed a number of great film noir’s for Fox like ‘Fallen Angel’ and ‘Whirlpool’ with the highlight being the 1944 classic ‘Laura’ with Gene Tierney as the femme fatale. Preminger shows the same deft directorial hand here but didn’t seem to be supplied all the pieces to make the whole. Certainly the cast is spot-on with Robert Mitchum playing Ambulance driver Frank Jessup. Frank Jessup has been fairly indifferent to his nice and comfortable life, mindlessly puffing on cigarettes while not fully appreciating his pretty, affable fiancée Mary (Mona Freeman). His current station in life provides perfect timing for the entrance of Jean Simmons as Diane Tremayne, the titular angel of death or ‘Angel Face’. Called up to the glitzy Hollywood Hills to check on Diane’s stepmother Catherine (Barbara O-Neill) who may or may not have attempted suicide, Diane is quickly able to ensnare Jessup into her web of playful naiveté.

Seemingly tired of his doldrums life of no surprises, Jessup quits his job and leaves his fiancée to be a driver for the Tremayne family with Diane’s insinuation that the family could provide financial support for his dream of opening up his own garage. Once part of the homestead, however, he sees some major issues with Diane and her daddy Charles (Herbert Marshall) where he sees that Diane is very competitive for her father’s love with Catherine and that Diane blames Catherine for Charles’ beaten down demeanor as of late (Charles used to be a famous writer).

Yet this doesn’t stop him from unwittingly expelling information that she can use in a murder plot that will also serve to implicate him. With a murder plot that goes terribly wrong, Diane becomes remorseful but still drags Frank into a nasty court trial where the film ends on an extremely bleak shock ending, an ending where you can’t help but let out a chuckle.

Jean Simmons, who was only 23 when she made ‘Angel Face’, is perfect as Diane Tremayne in which a new spin is put on the femme fatale. Instead of the all-knowing dastardly slink of a Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner, Diane is a femme fatale with evil intentions shaped by what is essentially a childish tantrum. That she knows how to bat her eyelashes at the opposite sex is the token fatale move but unlike other heroines of film noir, she never is rewarded for it nor is Frank Jessup who seems to be driven by a combination of young flesh, money and just plain indifference to the life he was leading. A strong film to be sure and oddly a film that sported a top ten spot on Godard’s list of best American pictures with sound while he was still a film critic yet it never entirely came together for me due to a certain lack of oomph throughout the picture. Moody but damn near ambivalent throughout until the last shocking frames.

The film is presented in full-frame preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. The lone special feature is a full-length commentary by Film Noir Historian Eddie Muller which provides a number of interesting anecdotes about the film as well as the relationship between Howard Hughes and Jean Simmons (not good).

Our next picture was also released in 1952, RKO’s ‘Macao’ a dry slice of melodramatic exotica and one of the many pictures still being cranked out in the 10-year wake of Casablanca that was trying for the gold but ending up closer to ‘Road to Morocco’ with Hope and Crosby. Heh, well okay, it’s not quite as goofy as all that but there’s not a whole lot here to recommend other than the hollowed-out presence of Mitchum and Jane Russell re-teaming after the much more successful ‘His Kind of Woman’ from 1951 which benefited from a fun performance by Vincent Price.

With ‘Macao’, we have your standard story of exotic intrigue and suspense without much intrigue and without much suspense. That being said, the stars are always worth watching with Jane Russell being particularly watchable and there’s definitely a rapport happening between the two stars that rises above the script and causes me to doubt that these two were heading to separate trailers after a hard day’s shoot.

Considering the film was directed by Josef von Sternberg who was no stranger to this type of picture with his great pairings with Dietrich like ‘Morocco’ and ‘Shanghai Express’, it should come as no surprise that Howard Hughes had Sternberg removed and replaced by Nicholas Ray who apparently didn’t have much to salvage. The plot is a rather convoluted snooze that I don’t wish to repeat in detail but broad strokes has Mitchum starring as Nick Cochran, an unsuccessful gambler running from the law in America where he meets lounge singer Julie Benson (Jane Russell) on a ferry to Macao. One cute meet later, they find themselves in Macao amongst Diamond smuggling, dirty casinos, and mistaken identities.

The film is presented in full-frame preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. Ironically, the dud of the collection sports the best special features. We have a commentary with Eddie Muller again, this time hosting the session with screenwriter Stanley Rubin who unleashes a lot of great stories about his life, his women and his work although not much about the ‘Macao’ film itself which is probably just as well. Also contributing to the commentary is Jane Russell who was edited in separately. Then we have the nearly half-hour ‘TCM Private Screenings’ featurette with the aging Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell hosted by Robert Osborne. Seeing these retrospective interviews with aging stars is a treat as they share stories and anecdotes about the films they worked on and each other and this interview was conducted in 1996, a year before Mitchum died. Mitchum comes across expectedly as a no-nonsense type of guy who nevertheless is sporting a members-only jacket! Even at 79, would you want to tell Mitchum not to wear that jacket?

Surprisingly, our next film, 1959’s ‘Home from the Hill’ is not a very well-known film even though it sports one of Robert Mitchum’s best performances and marks the notable entrances of George Peppard and George Hamilton in one of those big, sprawling, pot-boiler epics about a dominant, wealthy family with a walk-in closet full of skeletons.

Directed by Vincente Minnelli whose forte was stage-bound musicals like ‘An American in Paris’ and ‘Brigadoon’ and who helmed ‘Gigi’, the best picture winner the year previous, he managed to coax some great Douglas Sirk-ish moments from a script walking that fine line between effective melodrama and overheated silliness, a line generally reserved for the latest Tennessee Williams’ adaptation such as ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ which came out the same year.

Robert Mitchum stars as Captain Wade Hunnicutt, a wealthy East Texas land owner, who leads a notorious life of infidelity with the local women, for which a jealous husband or two always seems willing to take a shot at him. In a long, loveless marriage with Hannah (Eleanor Parker) who became savvy to his ways fresh from their honeymoon twenty years earlier. She vowed to stay with him in image if he would make a promise not to interfere with the raising of their son, Theron (George Hamilton) who is now in his late teens. Wet behind the ears as a momma’s boy, Theron’s naiveté about the world (poor guy couldn’t catch any snipes…I’ve been there) finally proves too much for Wade to handle and teaches the boy how to hunt and act like a man. We also have Rafe Copley (George Peppard), Wade’s illegitimate son who works for Wade and lives in a shack on Wade’s land.

As Theron learns about being a man through hunting, including a great wild-boar hunting sequence, Theron also learns about being a man through finally attempting to ask a local girl Libby (Luana Patten) out. Getting scared at the last minute, Theron begs Rafe to ask her for him which starts a curious love triangle. Libby’s father knows the reputation of Wade and thinks like father, like son so he disapproves of Theron to the extent of turning the poor kid away when he shows up to escort Libby on the date. They continue to meet in secret yet the treatment Theron received by Libby’s dad is revealed which leads to the furious Hanna opening the closet door to unleash the buried secrets she has sheltered him from all these years including his half-brother Rafe.

Infuriated about Wade’s treatment of Rafe (Wade keeps Rafe close but has never acknowledged to Rafe or anybody else that their father and son), Theron moves out leaving his mother heartbroken. Spurned by Theron, who wants no part of a family now that he sees what his family was actually like, Libby has no choice but to make a decision that will lead to the film’s climax involving emotions, gossip and violence all getting out of hand.

Robert Mitchum is great as the metaphoric heavy as opposed to the similar role of Big Daddy in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ where Burl Ives was more the literal heavy. Affecting a manner and voice that lifts the role off the page, Mitchum makes Captain Wade Hunnicutt a tangible slice of persona and his scenes with Eleanor Parker as the steely-eyed, distant by necessity Hannah steam up the screen. Hamilton is okay in the film but was never much of an actor and always fit better in the goofy comedies he made later in his career like ‘Love at First Bite’ and he certainly didn’t help matters any with his recent ‘Dancing with the Stars’ stint.

George Peppard as Rafe, however, is a revelation and damn near steals the film. The sympathy of the character notwithstanding, Rafe injects a lot of aw-shucks charm into Rafe and one can’t help but wish him the best of all the characters in the film. As smooth as Newman in similar roles, it’s a wonder that George Peppard never became as successful as Newman. While his career was nothing to scoff out with his notable peak in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ and the great WWI picture ‘The Blue Max’, his career had pretty much disappeared into forgettable television roles by the early seventies which is a shame judging by his work here.

The film is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. The theatrical trailer is the only special feature.

Next we have the classic quasi-western adventure ‘The Sundowners’ (1960), a definitive family picture as adept at comedy and drama as it is at the action and adventure, a true gem all the way. Directed by Fred Zinnemann with classic credits ranging from ‘High Noon’ (1952) to ‘From Here to Eternity’ (1953), Zinnemann knows how to spin a good yarn and doesn’t disappoint here.

Robert Mitchum plays Paddy Carmody who along with his wife Ida (Deborah Kerr) and young son Sean (Michael Anderson Jr.) play ‘sundowners’, vagabond families who toil the Western outback looking for work while sleeping under the stars. Paddy is extremely happy with this situation, he sees it as being a free man, not tied down to any particular job or land but his family becomes restless and wants to own a farm. Setting up camp in anticipation of their latest sheep-herding job across from the ideal farm for sell promotes wishful thinking for Ida and Sean but they realize their dream is futile. As Paddy goes into town to acquire a job, he comes back drunk and with a helper Rupert Venneker (Peter Ustinov), a rather pompous and droll Englishman with hot air to spare but good-hearted and who develops a rapport with Ida and Sean right away much to Paddy’s chagrin who doesn’t remember hiring him.

This sets up the sheep-herding sequences with Zinnemann’s trademark lavishness in tow. Huge, open landscapes full of animal life and color, with a brush fire to supply some tension. Some fun scenes and Zinnemann’s not shy about letting the camera rest here and there to take in the images. Once the sheep have been delivered to the small town of Cawndilla, Ida and Sean set a plan in motion that will hopefully get them settled down. Talking Paddy into sticking around for six weeks to shear sheep, he fights it but finally agrees not knowing that their plan is to save up enough money for a down payment on a house.

Paddy gets restless again when he loses a sheep-shearing contest to an older gent whose “eighty if he’s a day” and as much as Ida wants to stick around, she knows her place is by his side…even if it means leaving Sean behind too. But the family separation is not to be as some successful gambling and a horserace gallops the film to the climatic feel-good ending where the Carmody’s decide to commit a mass suicide…kidding, folks, all is well for the Carmody’s!

Mitchum and Kerr are splendid as the husband and wife team even though clichés come at a quick pace. Mitchum knocks back beer with the best of them, gets into friendly fist-fights which end in hugs and advice on how to throw a punch while Kerr is the ever-tolerant and loyal wife who makes a stand only on the issues she knows she can win. Kerr wears little to no make up in the film and her natural beauty matches the landscape, windswept and rugged, yet beautiful in a role that earned her a Best Actress nomination. Ustinov is always great and gets the films biggest laughs with his one-time ship captain character that never lets an aside get away. Ustinov’s love interest in the film, a local innkeeper played by Glynis Johns, is a little ball of energy and manages to wring a lot out of a small role in which she was rewarded with a Best Supporting Actress nomination. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay but was pretty much shut out by ‘The Apartment’. ‘The Sundowners’ is a big, sprawling epic full of comedy and heart that you just don’t get to see anymore.

The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. Special Features include the vintage featurette ‘On Location with the Sundowners’ and the films theatrical trailer.

The disappointing western/comedy ‘The Good Guys and the Bad Guys’ from 1969 comes up next in a telling year that included ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and ‘The Wild Bunch’. This type of amiable, irrelevant western didn’t have much of a place anymore beside the work of Peckinpah and Leone. Directed by Burt Kennedy who was never much of a director but who still managed to make ‘Support Your Local Sheriff!” (1969) successful that same year largely due to James Garner, never really gets this one off the ground.

It’s the early 1900’s and the times are a’ changing for old-timers like Marshal James Flagg (Mitchum) who is finding his use as a lawman dwindling. With retirement being forced on him from the haughty mayor (Martin Balsam), Flagg hears about a train robbery being planned by a gang led by outlaw (and an old pal) Big John McKay (George Kennedy) and proceeds to track them down. He tracks the gang down but is in for a surprise when he finds out McKay isn’t leading the gang but more just an old relic being bullied around by the young whippersnapper Waco (David Carradine). When Waco orders McKay to kill Flagg, McKay refuses and Waco shrugs the old-timers off and proceeds with his plan. Back in cahoots, Flat and McKay decide to team up to thwart the train robbery to still prove they have a place in this changing world…or maybe just to prove that they won’t break a hip while hopping on a train.

There’s not much here to recommend other than the okay teaming of Mitchum and Kennedy. The comedy generally falls flat, the train robbery is a snooze and David Carradine would prove to become much more interesting in the coming years. What we get is some nice scenery and some decent supporting work from John Davis Chandler, Douglas Fowley, Marie Windsor and David’s father John Carradine also popping in. Next!

The final film in the collection is 1975’s ‘The Yakuza’ directed by Sydney Pollack. An expensive flop upon release, the film is a fascinating East meet West culture clash and probably the best American film covering this subject, hitting much closer to home than Ridley Scott’s ‘Black Rain’ from 1989.

Written by Paul Schrader with a story by his brother Leonard Schrader (with a rewrite by famed script doctor Robert Towne), it was an admirable attempt at some insight into this world that was still new to most American film-goers in 1975. The script sold for $300,000, the highest amount at the time and the project went through several incarnations including a Lee Marvin/Robert Aldrich pairing. Even Martin Scorsese expressed interest in the project after ‘Mean Streets’ but the producers went to Sydney Pollack instead. Possibly a mistake, but the subject matter was able to rise above the clumsy direction.

Aging one-time private detective Harry Kilmer (Mitchum) is hired by a desperate friend and old Army buddy George Tanner (Brian Keith) to travel to Tokyo and rescue his kidnapped daughter. Held captive by Yakuza boss Toshiro Tono (Eiji Okada) for a weapons deal gone bad, Kilmer is familiar with Japan due to the postwar MacArthur occupation and is still owed a debt of honor by former yakuza member Tanaka Ken (Ken Takakura) whom he’ll try to enlist some help. Tanaka Ken, a formidable swordsman in his day has left the Yakuza to teach Kendo and begrudgingly assists Kilmer in his quest.

Ken, no fan of Kilmer, is held by his honor debt which materialized when Ken returned from the war to find that his sister Eiko (Keiko Kishi) and her young daughter had been saved by Kilmer during the occupation and that Eiko and Kilmer were involved. Obviously inspiring a conflict of emotions, a debt was owed but Ken convinced Eiko to end the relationship due to the immense hit on his pride from her putting him in a position where he owed a debt to an enemy. This caused Kilmer to return to America. Now making a sudden reappearance after all these years, requesting help, he also looks up Eiko to find that a small flame is still burning. 

Amidst all the drama, there is still a kidnapped girl to rescue and Kilmer and Ken tear through the violent Tokyo underground as old pros with a silent understanding. ‘The Yakuza’ is an overly ambitious film that largely succeeds due to the performances of Mitchum and especially Ken Takakura (who also plays a similar role in ‘Black Rain’). Already an established star in Japan at the time for his yakuza pictures, Ken was widely regarded as the Clint Eastwood of Japan, all stoicism and rough edges which perfectly fits the quietly wounded character of Tanaka Ken and his concept of ‘Giri’, which is what inspires his debt and devotion to Kilmer and translates as ‘the burden hardest to bear’. That these two reach a deep understanding of each other by the end of the film should come as no surprise but this is no buddy film. This understanding is a result of some very real emotions and a painful Yakuza ritual that expresses the need to right a wrong. The final scenes have a resonance to them that was unexpected.

The film is also gloriously violent, with a number of brutal killings by sword, gun and hand. Severed limbs, decapitations, disembowelments…the movie doesn’t pull the camera away or shrink away from the violence but more embraces it. The final climatic battle is an expertly staged and choreographed fight sequence with Ken and Kilmer slicing and shooting with their respective weapons. It’s obvious that Ken has done this many times over in previous Yakuza pictures with a character that makes quick, fluid movements and sharp jabs.

Basically, Ken is a man you buy in a sequence like this as opposed to say…Uma Thurman. That the film still looks downright comatose compared to the works of Japanese Yakuza filmmakers like Kinji Fukasaku (check out ‘The Yakuza Papers’ and ‘Sympathy for the Underdog’) and Seijun Suzuki (‘Branded to Kill’) was probably in equal parts intentional and the result of stolid directing from Sydney Pollack who seemed content to just set the camera up and film without either adding or distracting from the end product.

The film is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. Special Features include a commentary by Sydney Pollack that’s intriguing but he still seems to be smarting from the failure of the film upon release and makes a few too many excuses for a film that he should be proud of (even if his addition to the project didn’t add much). There’s also a vintage featurette ‘Promises to Keep’.

Whew, this collection covers Robert Mitchum’s career over of a span of 23 years and a variety of roles and while none of these titles have much of a reputation outside of cinephile circles, there are some nice, unheralded gems in here for Mitchum and film fans alike. That one has to suffer through ‘The Good Guys and The Bad Guys’ is a small price to pay to finally get ‘Home from the Hill’, ‘The Sundowners’ and ‘The Yakuza’ on DVD. Easily recommended.

Robert Mitchum - The Signature Collection is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.