Many movie stars of the Hollywood Golden Age were "the strong, silent type" — Robert Mitchum was definitely one of them. That silence and piercing gaze meant Mitchum could play villains more convincingly than many of his contemporaries. He played not one but two serial killers — Harry Powell in "The Night of The Hunter" and Max Cady in "Cape Fear" — before the phrase even entered the popular lexicon. Even his heroic roles, such as Jeff Markham in the noir "Out of the Past," had as much edge as the Hays Code would permit.
Mitchum's stardom even survived brushes with the law. In 1949, he served two months in prison for marijuana possession. So, why was Mitchum in such demand? It wasn't just because audiences loved him.
Where The Demand Came From
A 1982 Village Voice profile explores why Mitchum was popular with both Hollywood money-men and movie-goers. For the former, it's because he...
Mitchum's stardom even survived brushes with the law. In 1949, he served two months in prison for marijuana possession. So, why was Mitchum in such demand? It wasn't just because audiences loved him.
Where The Demand Came From
A 1982 Village Voice profile explores why Mitchum was popular with both Hollywood money-men and movie-goers. For the former, it's because he...
- 8/13/2022
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
To the public, Alec Baldwin’s Colt .45 stands as a symbol of perhaps criminal incompetence, but to insiders it also represents a pathetic epitaph to that mythic genre, the “indie” movie.
The indie Western already was in dire straits because of lack of funding and distribution until Baldwin came along as both star and producer of Rust – a sort of Dennis Hopper of the 2020s. The film was under-budgeted at $7 million on a 21-day shooting schedule. Its crew was rebellious, inexperienced and seemingly oblivious to the protocols governing movie weaponry.
Besides all this, no one seemed to be running the show among the usual cluster of producers and executive producers (including Baldwin’s manager).
By contrast, indie producers traditionally were proud to take their bows. Upon completing Easy Rider, Hopper once boasted proudly that his film crew was essentially “a dysfunctional family.” The dysfunction worked for him in the ’60s...
The indie Western already was in dire straits because of lack of funding and distribution until Baldwin came along as both star and producer of Rust – a sort of Dennis Hopper of the 2020s. The film was under-budgeted at $7 million on a 21-day shooting schedule. Its crew was rebellious, inexperienced and seemingly oblivious to the protocols governing movie weaponry.
Besides all this, no one seemed to be running the show among the usual cluster of producers and executive producers (including Baldwin’s manager).
By contrast, indie producers traditionally were proud to take their bows. Upon completing Easy Rider, Hopper once boasted proudly that his film crew was essentially “a dysfunctional family.” The dysfunction worked for him in the ’60s...
- 10/28/2021
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
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