Matthew McConaughey: This Generation's Robert Mitchum?

Several actors have been compared to ROBERT MITCHUM over the years: Just recently, David Fincher said he chose Daniel Craig as the lead in "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" because of his "Robert Mitchum center." Now the A.V. Club says that Matthew McConaughey -- long mocked for his frequent shirtlessness and disappointing romcoms -- is "this generation's Robert Mitchum." They're basing that on McConaughey's great run in Magic Mike and Bernie, but mostly on his buzzworthy turn as a murderous sheriff in William Friedkin's Killer Joe. The role is drawing comparisons to Mitchum's indelibly evil preacher in The Night of the Hunter:

"They have the same dangerous magnetism—lithe, relaxed, preternaturally self-assured, and almost feminine in their power to seduce. Their respective drawls suggest different things—McConaughey’s promises a good time, Mitchum’s something darker—but they’re both especially effective in roles where their charisma baits a trap. Watching them at work is like witnessing Nosferatu’s mesmeric powers at play in the real world."

I can't say I've been much of a McConaughey fan, but I did love his turn in the deliciously dark Frailty, directed by fellow Texan Bill Paxton. Looking forward to Killer Joe, which is currently playing in limited release in New York, expanding to more theaters this Friday. (Here's a list of theaters and release dates.)

Read the entire A.V. Club article here.

Benicio Del Toro's Favorite Villain: Robert Mitchum

As part of a gallery of modern screen villains, Benicio Del Toro tells GQ magazine in its June issue what scared him as a child: "Teachers. The dark. Being alone. Being somewhere alone."

He also chose one movie villain that frightened him more than any other:  "It was Robert Mitchum in the original Cape Fear that scared me the most because he was very real. Mitchum was like someone I knew and he overpowered the good guy—Gregory Peck—until the end."

Del Toro next stars in Oliver Stone's Savages as a ruthless, machete-wielding enforcer, who as co-star Taylor Kitsch told GQ , "goes around matter-of-factly decapitating people."

The Impact of 'Cape Fear'

For the 50th anniversary of the thriller Cape Fear, Gary Susman (a colleague at Moviefone) wrote a great essay about how ROBERT MITCHUM's role as Max Cady ushered in the age of "modern movie villainy."

"... the movie's reputation grew over the years, mostly because Mitchum's performance was so terrifying that it's impossible to dismiss as mere exploitation fare. (By 1991, when Martin Scorsese remade it, Cape Fear was routinely referred to as a classic, a designation no one would have imagined three decades earlier.)"

The original is now available on Blu-ray as well as DVD.

Frank Langella on 'Wrath of God's Troubled Shoot

Actor Frank Langella has just published his memoirs in the new book "Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them," out later this month. An extended excerpt details the difficult 1972 shoot of The Wrath of God, starring ROBERT MITCHUM and Rita Hayworth. The '40s screen goddess (who was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's) had difficulties remembering her lines. Langella recalls how Mitchum helped get Rita to the set on time.  

She was by then finished in pictures and the word was that Mitch had insisted on her, possibly for old times’ sake, the rumor being they had once had a tumble or two. Mitch would play a runaway priest. I would be the town’s despot, who swears revenge on all priests for murdering my father, and Rita would be my mother, a God-fearing matron who never lets go of a set of rosary beads...

One day [Mitchum] comes to me and says: “Listen, pal, we’re never going to finish this f--king picture if we don’t get your girl to work on time.” Mitch, Rita, and I have our own local drivers, and each of them regards the harrowing ride along narrow, unfenced mountain roads as challenges to be met with daredevil speed. Mitch sleeps through his rides and so do I. But Rita, who is terrified of all moving things, makes her driver go at a snail’s pace and often arrives at work an easy hour or more after everyone else. So Mitch comes up with a plan: “Look,” he says. “Let’s the three of us ride together. You sit up front and we’ll put Rita in the back with me.”

Early mornings become a struggle of manipulating Rita into a broken-down jalopy and laying her down on the floor of the back seat. Mitch tosses a blanket over her as she pulls her floppy sailor hat down past her eyes. I then hop in the front and off we go. These rides become a hilarious routine of Rita laughing and screaming at the top of her lungs, with Mitch stretched out on the back seat outshouting her, singing Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs, exactly as written, in perfect pitch, while a non-English-speaking driver careens close to the narrow road’s edge as wildly as he dares. When we reach the location, I get out and Mitch and I lift Rita from the floor, remove the blanket, pull up her hat, and calm her down. “Cheated the old Grim Reaper again,” he says and saunters off to his trailer.

At the time, very few people understood or recognized Alzheimer's and assumed she was simply an alcoholic. Hayworth died in 1987 at the age of 68.

via The Daily Beast (Newsweek)

Behind-the-Scenes Footage Shot by 'Ryan's Daughter' Stand-In to be Shown for First Time

An Irishman who served as a stand-in for ROBERT MITCHUM on "Ryan's Daughter" has just donated the on-set home movies he made during the film's shoot. That behind-the-scenes footage from the David Lean film will be screened for the first time March 17.

Tom Fitzgerald, who went on to become a Fianna Fail senator, earned £96 a week. He put part of that new salary towards a Super X 8mm camera and began filming, often without the crew's knowledge. "For film people, this is of huge interest. I was the only one with a movie camera at the time so there's no other archival material like it around," he told the Independent

Fitzgerald has donated his original reels to the RTE Archive, who then transferred the original to DVD. He gave a copy to the Dingle Film Festival, which will screen his footage for the first time in public in St James' Church on March 17.

Festival director Maurice Galway said it would be a unique opportunity for the town to celebrate its association with "Ryan's Daughter."

Via Irish Independent

Mitchum Has a Steak House Named After Him!

Who knew there was a steak house named after ROBERT MITCHUM? Saw a mention of it here (the story came up on my Google Mitchum alerts): "Nestled near the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, in the country hamlet of Trappe, stands a four-star eatery called Mitchum's, named after the A-list film star of the 1940s, '50s and '60s."

Couldn't be more fitting as Mitchum used to tell us, "Beef. It's what's for dinner."

The Maryland restaurant's site describes it a "gourmet oasis tucked within the historic Eastern Shore village of Trappe... Mitchum's is well worth a short trip off the beaten path... the restaurant evokes the masculine sophistication of its strapping Hollywood namesake, who lived on a local farm for eleven years. His classic black and white films – complete with curvy starlets and subtitles – silently play above the sweeping bar." (Which sounds great, except that you don't get to hear that famous baritone as you dine.)

The restaurant opened in 2008. As one reviewer put it, "Dining at a steakhouse named after Robert Mitchum means manly servings of meat and potatoes— and even a Marilyn Monroe sighting. A restaurant named for actor Robert Mitchum couldn’t be anything but a steakhouse, could it? No dainty tea room with small plates for him. No, sir. Beefcake needs meat, and Mitchum’s Steak House offers lots of it, plus some appetizers that make dinner seem nearly redundant."

Another stated, "It doesn’t take long to find a local old-timer or two who have pleasant memories of interaction with the down-to-earth movie star. It’s even easier to find people who have good things to say about Mitchum’s."

Even though I'm a vegetarian, I'd love to check it out! Besides steak, they also serve local seafood, so if you don't eat either, sounds like you're out of luck, unless you want just a salad or to sample their extensive-looking wine list. Since I live in L.A., I can always go grab a drink at the Formosa or Boardner's, two watering holes Mitchum was known to frequent.

Robert Mitchum on Marilyn Monroe: "She Had a Quiescent Loser's Philosophy"

I attended the Remembering Marilyn Monroe Wednesday night in Los Angeles, where the 1964 documentary The Legend of Marilyn Monroe was screened. (My account about the evening is up over at my Examiner column.)

ROBERT MITCHUM appears long enough to utter one mystifying line about Marilyn: "She had a quiescent loser's philosophy." He made River of No Return with her, on location in Canada, where he later recalled trying to get her to shake the affected mannerisms her dialect coach suggested.

Shelley Winters, who was Marilyn's roommate when the two were struggling starlets, was also quoted briefly in the film: "If she were dumber, she would have been a lot happier."

The director of the documentary, Terry Sanders took part in a Q&A with Susan Bernard, author of the book Marilyn: Intimate Exposures. Bernard commented that he was lucky to get Mitchum to say anything at all, as the actor was notoriously hard to interview. (Larry King recently told a reporter that Mitchum was his toughest interview ever: "I loved Robert Mitchum's work, but he drove me nuts. He only gave one-word answers!")

Bernard read from her book and shared images taken by her father, Bruno Bernard, the photographer who discovered Marilyn. Juxtaposed with pin-up pictures of a young Marilyn was a photo of Mitchum enjoying a girlie magazine!

Pic courtesy of this lovely Marilyn fan site

Screening of 'The Legend of Marilyn Monroe' Jan. 25

LA-area fans of Marilyn Monroe might want to check out a free night dedicated to the screen icon taking place Jan. 25 at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum. The evening includes a screening of the 1966 documentary The Legend of Marilyn Monroe, with director Terry Sanders in person. Among the people appearing in the film are director John Huston and ROBERT MITCHUM, Monroe's co-star in River of No Return.

Also on the program, newsreels and outtakes of Monroe and a Q&A with Sanders and Susan Bernard, author of the photo book, Marilyn: Intimate Exposures.

More details here.