David Fincher Cast Daniel Craig for His "Robert Mitchum Center"

For his ideal leading man in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, director David Fincher explains that he was seeking someone with an inner ROBERT MITCHUM, and James Bond star Daniel Craig was that actor.

“The casting process began with Daniel, and if you build your universe, it's like a good basketball team, you start with the anchor. And I knew him to be self-effacing and witty, and I knew that I needed that for Mikael. I wanted a very masculine center to the film. The androgynous side of the movie would be carried by Rooney, that was her job. So I knew that I needed a sort of Robert Mitchum center. And so when we had Daniel that was a fait accompli."

The closest Fincher came to working with Mitchum himself? In two degrees, Sean Penn (The Game) to Robert De Niro (the Cape Fear remake, in which Mitchum had a cameo).

Via News OK.

Merry Christmas From Robert Mitchum

 

ROBERT MITCHUM in a plaid holiday vest? Yes, the movie is Scrooged, the '80s update of the Dickens classic. It stars Bill Murray as a heartless TV executive and his clueless boss (Mitchum), who gives him advice like creating programming for pets! (Why not a detective who plays with string instead of sucking on a lollipop?) As the film winds down to its happy ending, even Mitchum's character approves of Murray's transformation. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Albert Brooks Picks Max Cady as One of His Favorite Villains

 

Albert Brooks, who's gotten great reviews and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his role as a gangster in Drive, was asked to name his five favorite film villains. Among them: Norman Bates, Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford and Max Cady in the original Cape Fear. "With Mitchum's Max Cady, he could go crazy on you, you just didn't know where his tolerance would end and he'd turn into some other kind of guy," he says. Via Yahoo Movies.

Happy 95th Birthday to Kirk Douglas

In honor of Kirk Douglas turning 95, I put together a list of my 10 favorite films of his. Curiously, enough, two of them happen to co-star ROBERT MITCHUM: Out of the Past and The List of Adrian Messenger.

RIP, Harry Morgan

Sad to hear that Harry (also known as Henry) Morgan has passed away at the age of 96. He was best known for his role as Col. Potter on TV's MASH, but he also had a long film career. One of my favorite roles of his is as the judge in Holiday Affair. He hears an outlandish case involving ROBERT MITCHUM and his wry amusement at the convoluted love triangle with Mitchum, Janet Leigh and Wendell Corey and peculiar details involving a squirrel and a little girl with a balloon on her head, make for a very funny scene. RIP.

Mitchum: One of the Coolest Cowboys of All Time

With Cowboys & Aliens in theaters (featuring Daniel Craig in his first western role), Rediff asks "Who are the coolest cowboys of all time?" Among their picks: ROBERT MITCHUM, John Wayne, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges.

Hard to disagree with that list!

The full photo gallery is here.

New Biography of Director Nicholas Ray

Mitchum and Nicholas Ray on the set of 'The Lusty Men.'

Director Nicholas Ray made several 1950s classics, including Rebel Without a Cause, the Humphrey Bogart film noir In a Lonely Place, and one of Mitchum's finest films, The Lusty Men. But his later career stalled, despite his cooperation with HUAC during the Red Scare.

A new biography, 'Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director' by Patrick McGilligan, profiles Ray, who was as known for his Hollywood romances as his movies: He slept with Natalie Wood when she was just 16 during production of Rebel. His other conquests include Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford and Judy Holliday.

His most famous marriage was to noir icon Gloria Grahame, who costarred with Mitchum in Macao and Not as a Stranger. The Grahame biography Suicide Blonde details their stormy marriage and her subsequent marriage to Ray's son from his first marriage. (That's right, she married her own stepson!)

Ray would go on to become a mentor to filmmakers Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch (who directed Mitchum's last theatrical film, Dead Man). Wenders gave Ray a cameo in The American Friend and filmed Lightning Over Water, a documentary about Ray's last days.


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