Tag Archives: Robert Mitchum

Nightkill (1980)

Posted on May 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Somebody is listening in.

Kathy (Jaclyn Smith) is married to Wendell (Mike Connors) a wealthy, but unethical businessman living in Arizona. She’s unhappy in the marriage and wants a divorce, but Wendell promises to make things hard for her if she does, so she reluctantly stays in it, but on the side has an affair with Steve (James Franciscus) his close business associate. Steve poisons Wendell and sticks his body inside the freezer of Wendell’s home and then impersonates him on a flight to Washington to make it appear that he’s still alive. Kathy remains at home only to become harassed by a aggressive detective Donner (Robert Mitchum) who’s suspicious that Wendell has become a victim of foul play. Kathy decides she must get rid of the body, but when she opens up the freezer she discovers it’s no longer Wendell’s corpse that’s inside, but instead Steve’s.

Odd thriller that was produced by a German film company, but filmed in the US. The film succeeds with having a distinct score and great location shooting of Arizona in which it’s dry, desolate landscape helps reflect the empty, inner nature of the characters. It was directed by Ted Post, who’s best known for the cult hit The Baby, which is famous for its twist ending, and there’s a lot of story twists here too, but for whatever reason fails to be captivating and this is mostly due to the dull characters.

Kathy was the one that got on my nerves the most. One minute she’s telling him that she can’t stand him and then the next minute she’s upset and sobbing over his unexpected death, so which is it? It seems like she should’ve been elated when he keeled-over and having her played-up as being this innocent is unrealistic. When you spend your life associating with bad people it tends to rub-off and it’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t have been tainted by the corruption of not only her spouse, but lover and Smith’s poor attempt at crying just makes it all the more worse. I rather have openly bad people going after each other and seeing which one is left standing then some idealized angel who’s completely out-of-place in the setting and would have to be extraordinarily naïve not to have caught-on to the shenanigans that were going on long before she does. If anything Sybil Danning, who is seen in a much smaller role, should’ve been given the lead as her conniving, sauciness was exactly what the character needed to have made it interesting.

Franciscus isn’t in it long enough to make much of an impression and Mitchum sleep walks through his part and thus making his onscreen presence quite bland and his big name, star status adds nothing. The only one that is fun is Connors, best known for his starring role in the cop TV-show ‘Mannix’. Here he plays against type by being an obnoxious jerk that delights in upsetting some caged monkeys that they have in his home. The rotten personality of his character is over-the-top enough to be fun and it’s just a shame he had to die-off so quickly.

Spoiler Alert!

An mentioned there are some nifty twists, but it ultimately adds up to little. The biggest problem is that Mitchum, who’s just as shady as Connors and Franciscus, ends up getting away with it, by stealing the stolen money that Connors has in his airport locker and flying out of the country, which isn’t exactly an audience pleaser. Smith doesn’t completely die either as we see her injured body on the bathroom floor calling the police making it seem that with her information there was still a chance he could get caught and the film should’ve played this out to completion and not left it open to guessing.

Lots of logistical issues too. For instance Mitchum kills Francsicus supposedly at the airport, but for some reason, we never see it but can only presume, drags the dead body back to Smith’s home just so he can put it into the freezer, but why bother? Also, where does he put Connor’s body when he replaces it with Franciscus’? Where does he get the mask of Mike Connors’ face that he uses to disguise himself that he is him? Does he know a manufacturer that makes specially made masks  to resemble someone they know and if so what company is this because I’ve never heard of it? Also, how does he know there’s a cop inside the police department named Donner as he pretends to be this man when he investigates the case even though he’s really a private eye named Rodriguez? These along with several other questions never get answered, which significantly hurts the plausibility.

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Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ted Post

Available: DVD-R, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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The Ambassador (1984)

Posted on September 9, 2022 | 1 comment

ambassador

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for porno film.

Peter (Robert Mitchum) is a US Ambassador to Israel who has an idealistic view on how to find peace in the Middle East by bringing together young Jews and Muslims who he hopes will work together for middle ground solutions. Not everyone including Peter’s own security agent Frank (Rock Hudson) thinks this is realistic. Peter’s wife Alex (Ellen Burstyn) feels ignored by her husband and falls into the arms of a much younger man named Hashimi (Fabio Testi) who just so happens to work for the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). Alex’s rendezvous with him are sexual in nature and during one of their meetups they are secretly recorded on film. Peter then gets blackmailed to pay a large sum of money, or risk having the movie broadcast on TV. Peter refuses to comply and orders Frank to find the whereabouts of the blackmailers hoping to retrieve the original print before it can be seen by anyone else.

This was yet another film shot on-location in Israel that was produced by Menahem Golan and his cousin Yoram Globus, who bought the production company known as the Cannon Group during the 70’s and were notorious for producing, and sometimes writing and directing, a lot of slap-dash action flicks that were made in such a quick, assembly line style, that it got them the nicknames of the Go-Go- Boys. This film isn’t as bad as some of those and features tight editing and interesting twists. It was inspired by the 1974 Elmore Leonard novel ’52 Pick-Up’ and Leonard himself was hired to write the screenplay, but after his first two drafts were rejected he walked-out. The only elements of the story that was retained was the sex film blackmail plot, but everything else was changed though 2 years later the Cannon Group produced 52 Pick-Up that starred Roy Scheider and Ann-Margaret that was more faithful to the original book.

Surprisingly the best thing about this version is Hudson and while I’ve been critical about some of his other performances he shines here despite being already quite ill and looking gaunt and not as muscular. The role had originally been offered to Telly Savalas, but due to scheduling conflicts he had to bow out and Hudson was brought in just a week before filming began. Even with his poor health he takes part in most of the action and has a strong presence though reports were that he and Mitchum did not get along and had many arguments throughout the shoot.

Mitchum, who took the role after getting accused of being anti-semitic and a holocaust denier, is wonderful despite his age and face that has a very tired and worn-out look. Burstyn is excellent too and I was genuinely shocked at her nude scene, no body double here, and at age 51 still looked great doing it.

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s ending had me rolling-my-eyes a bit with the way it’s able to bring together these Jewish and Muslin students at a remote location and somehow get them to see eye-to-eye on things, which seemed too easy and romanticized. The proceeding bloodbath did take me by surprise though having Mitchum conveniently leave the scene and is therefore not a part of the carnage that kills everybody else seemed like it would come-off as suspicious to others. The viewer knows he had no idea of the pending massacre, but the other characters don’t and having him quietly leave just before the shooting commenced would make some believe that he had something to do with it, or maybe even set-up the students to get killed and thus be despised by the other people at the end instead of considered a visionary hero like he is.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: May 12, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated R

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Studio: Cannon Film Distributors

Available: DVD-R (MGM Limited Edition Collection) Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Political Thrillers

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The Big Sleep (1978)

Posted on September 19, 2019 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hired to find blackmailer.

Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is an American detective living in London who gets hired by a aging, retired general named Sternwood (James Stewart) to locate the person who has been blackmailing him for money. He thinks it may have something to do with his colorful daughters: the gambling addicted Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and the promiscuous Camilla (Candy Clark) who enjoys posing for nude photographs.

The film is based on the 1939 novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler and a remake of the 1946 film that starred Humphrey Bogart. Here though the setting has been updated from the 1940’s to the 1970’s and the venue changed from New York to London. The movie was also able to tackle many of the more kinkier aspects of the story that the 40’s version was only able to allude to.

Personally I felt the changes worked and made the premise more interesting. Why an American detective would be working in England is never properly answered, but the new setting does allow for some interesting on-location shooting like having the Knebworth House used as the Sternwood Mansion, which is breathtaking to look at both inside and out. The erotic undertones get used to their full potential especially with Candy Clark’s nude scenes who looks fabulous naked and she plays the part with such spunk that every scene she is in is highly amusing and the whole film could’ve easily been built around her alone.

Mitchum’s presence isn’t as distracting as it was in Farewell, My Lovely where he played the same part, but in a 1940’s setting. Having it upgraded to the modern-day actually makes him come-off as younger and a lot of the reason could be the snazzy suits he wears as opposed to the drab hat and trench coat. He also isn’t forced to get into any physical confrontations with anyone, which would make him look foolish as he’d be too old to kick any young guy’s ass, nor is there any romantic overtures with a younger woman, only Camilla who immediately throws herself at him the second she meets him, but since she does that with every man it doesn’t matter, which all helps to make his advanced age, which was 60 at the time and far older than the intended character, a non-issue.

The main problem is the story, which I found to be just too damn confusing. I like mysteries, but more in the Agatha Christie realm where we have actual clues to follow and an interesting array of suspects as opposed to something with a dizzying pace where every line of dialogue creates a new twist and potential suspects popping up out of nowhere only to quickly get killed off or just disappear completely. It’s possible in the novel, which I never read, this all got laid out better, but here it became convoluted to the extent that after the first 30 minutes I became lost and didn’t care what happened next, or for that matter who got killed and who didn’t.

Having a side-story thrown-in like Marlowe taking up some sort of quirky hobby that had nothing to do with the mystery that the film could cut back to every once in awhile in order to allow the viewer to catch their breath would’ve helped. The film still manages to be watchable mainly from the high production values and the eclectic cast. I also enjoyed the beginning and end segments where the camera takes the driver’s point-of-view as we see the car drive through the winding roads as it enters the Sternwood Mansion property and then at the end while it leaves the property as the credits roll past.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 13, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Winner

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Dry Humor, Foreign Films, Gay/Lesbian, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Remakes

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Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Posted on September 1, 2019 | 3 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Searching for missing lady.

Based on the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name the story centers on private eye Phillip Marlowe who meets Moose Malloy (Jack O’Halloran) a recently released convict that asks Phillip to find his girlfriend Velma who worked as a dancer at a nightclub, but who has now gone missing. Marlowe decides to take the case, but finds a wide array of strange clues that leads him on a bizarre trail that has many twists.

The novel was filmed before in 1944 as Murder, My Sweet that starred Dick Powell, which has become a classic. This remake was noted for being able to stay closer to the source novel by retaining aspects of the story that was considered too provocative for 1940’s standards, but the edition of these elements really doesn’t make the mystery any more interesting. The direction doesn’t convey any feel for the material and despite the intricate plot everything plods along at a rather mundane pace. I also never really felt that the setting effectively reflected the 40’s as much as it could’ve.

The biggest issue though is Mitchum. The guy is certainly a legendary actor and his performance here isn’t bad I actually thought his timing with the way he conveys his lines was on-target, but he’s just way too old for the role. In the novel Marlowe was described as being in his 30’s, but Mitchum was 57 and looking more like 67. The guy comes-off as washed-up with no charisma, or ability to win a fight even though he does get into a few altercations anyways, which doesn’t seem believable.

The eclectic supporting cast is the only thing that makes it mildly interesting. Sylvia Miles got nominated for supporting actress Oscar as a lonely alcoholic lady with a secret, but I actually enjoyed Charlotte Rampling as a beautiful, but cold and conniving gold digger much better. It’s also great to see Kate Murtagh as this overweight woman who runs a whorehouse. Fat woman are usually never given prominent roles in most Hollywood films, but here she plays an intriguing part that culminates with a surreal, nightmarish segment that helps give the film a little extra verve that’s otherwise missing.

The film also has a couple of great cameos. One features Sylvester Stallone in a non-speaking role as a thug, which was just before he broke it big with Rocky. I found the cameo though by author Jim Thompson, who’s best known for writing such novels as ‘The Getaway’ and ‘Pop. 1280’ to be far more interesting. He plays the elderly husband to Rampling and the scene where he opens up a door to find her kissing Mitchum on a couch and all he does his just shut the door back-up and leave to be the funniest moment in the movie.

The budget should’ve been bigger as it’s not stylish. If you’re going to redo a classic you’ve got to go all-out, but the effort here is half-hearted. Yet despite this the producers forged ahead with another Marlowe film that had Mitchum again playing the part. That one was called The Big Sleep and will be reviewed later this month.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 8, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Dick Richards

Studio: Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery

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Going Home (1971)

Posted on September 25, 2016 | Leave a comment

going-home

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Father and son reunite.

One night during a drunken rage Harry Graham (Robert Mitchum) kills his wife (Sally Kirkland), which gets witnessed by their 7-year-old son Jimmy (Jan-Michael Vincent). 13 years later Harry is paroled and Jimmy uses this opportunity to try and reconcile with his father and find out why he did it, but Harry has moved on. He has a new job and a girlfriend named Jenny (Brenda Vaccaro) and when Jimmy appears it creates an awkward tension that gets progressively worse.

One of the biggest problems with this film is that the characters and their motivations are not fleshed out enough and their actions make little sense. I’ve watched a lot of true-life crime shows and have found that in cases where this situation has occurred in real-life that the adult child will usually cease communication with their father and completely disown them, so it seemed strange why Jimmy would want to restart their relationship. If he was curious to know why Harry did it then he could’ve simply written him a letter with that question, which he never bothered to do while the man was incarcerated.

The film also fails to show what happened to Jimmy during the time Harry was in prison. He is shown arriving at an orphanage, but nothing about what does when he gets there or being put into a foster home and getting adoptive parents, or moving in with relatives, which is what usually occurs. He somehow has no friends or job and if this is because of his childhood trauma then it should get explained or more strongly implied, but it isn’t and it leaves a big void in the story.

Harry’s actions are equally confusing. The murder gets played out at the beginning and we see the stabbed mother crawl down the stairs and beg Jimmy for help and then Harry comes down and looks at the dead body before turning towards the boy with a guilty expression, but if  he feels so bad about what he has just done and the traumatic impact he’s put his son through then he should’ve thought of that beforehand. I would’ve expected to see a completely different set of emotions in the man’s eyes like anger, rage, insanity or even fear because now he knows he’ll will be going to prison, but guilt wouldn’t play into it, at least not that quickly if ever.

Mitchum’s character is straddled with conveying only one emotion throughout, which is guilt. We never tap into the other side of the man that propelled him to commit such a heinous act and his explanation, which is that he ‘just got drunk’ is insufficient. The character also pops up too conveniently at times. One moment is when Jimmy goes back to their former home, which has now been turned into a whorehouse and he hides in the basement. Harry comes looking for him and despite the fact that there are many people there and it’s a large place he immediately goes to the cellar, but how would he have known to look there? Another segment has him magically coming to Jimmy’s rescue when his son is accosted by a group of sailors underneath a boardwalk even though he was bowling in another building and would have no way of knowing what was occurring outside.

The film has solid production values and director Herbert B. Leonard shows flair with the location shooting, which was done in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There is also a good scene inside a chicken coop  and actor Josh Mostel (Zero’s son) has an interesting film debut playing Harry’s young, flippant parole officer who delights in demeaning his client as much as possible, but the story leaves open too many unanswered questions and isn’t impactful or relevant.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 1, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Herbert B. Leonard

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD-R (Warner Archive)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Obscure Movies, Psychological

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The Grass is Greener (1960)

Posted on December 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

grass is greener

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: They all fool around.

Hilary (Deborah Kerr) is married to Victor (Cary Grant) and they are low on funds so they give guided tours of their castle in order to make ends meet. Then one day rich American businessman Charles Delarco (Robert Mitchum) stops by and takes an immediate liking to Hilary and her to him. Soon they are having an affair and Victor along with his friend Hattie (Jean Simmons) devises a plan to win her back.

The film starts out well with a funny montage of cute babies in goofy poises shown during the opening credits, but then things go rapidly and irrevocably flat. One of the main problems is that there is simply too much talking and most of it isn’t funny or engaging. In fact none of the conversations between any of the four leads is interesting. The best dialogue in the whole film is the ones between Victor and his butler Trevor (Moray Watson) who is doing the job while working on his novel.  I wished there had been more of Trevor and that the story had revolved around him as the rest is trite and predictable.

Mitchum just doesn’t seem right as the love interest. He is best in parts requiring a rugged or villainous character as his romantic appeal is lacking. I actually thought he came off as downright creepy especially with the way he barges into Hillary’s room unannounced and is reluctant to immediately leave when he realizes he has walked into the wrong place. Most women would have considered him a stalker and his squinty eyes don’t help things.

I also thought Hillary throws herself at him a little too quickly. He is a stranger who pops out of nowhere. The two have a boring ten minute conversation and then are in a passionate embrace. Victor tries like crazy to win her back while I’m thinking why bother keeping a woman who jumps at any man who has money. Might as well just hire a good lawyer and take the hussy for all she’s worth.

The fact that Victor immediately figures out about the affair was another negative in my opinion as it doesn’t allow for hundreds of potential comic scenarios of them carrying on behind his back. As it is scenarios of any kind are woefully lacking. There is one scene where Victor takes Charles out fishing and another where they have a dual, but both end up being much too brief. For the most part it is just a static filmed stage play with background sets that a boring and color that looks faded and washed out.

Of course I did like Cary it is hard to dislike him simply because he is so good at being Cary. If anything his charm manages to keep this waterlogged thing afloat. Simmons isn’t bad either. I loved her variety of outfits and spunky personality. Kerr though looks and acts tired and not able to keep up with the comic timing of the other two.

If you like an old-fashioned but still very tasteful bedroom farce then this would at best be passable although Grant fans may like it a bit more while others will find it stagnant.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: December 23, 1960

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated NR (Not Rated)

Director: Stanley Donen

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Romance

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