Considering he didnt act, Mitchum was amazingly versatile onscreen.
He also had great comic timing, and a slow, measured voice.
Never once was he upstaged by another performance.
If he was onscreen, he held your attention.
Maybe that was because he never looked like he cared for your attention one way or another.
His performance won him his only Academy Award nomination.
He also had great chemistry as a leading man with Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr.
His advice to them when they decided to follow in his footsteps?
Whatever you do, dont get caught at it, he said.
Five of his best roles
1.
Its a film that feels like an intense and powerful nightmare.
After youve experienced it you find yourself remembering it with that same sinking feeling in your stomach.
Mitchum plays the Reverend Harry Powell, one of the most frightening of screen creations.
Dont he ever sleep?
No, and after watching this film, we dont sleep either.
His depiction of Max Cady was selected by Newsweek as one of the ten best villains in cinema history.
They are both definitely worth a look too.
The brilliance of GI Joe is in the fact that there are no predictable plotlines.
The GIs concern themselves with letters from home, or what everyones getting to eat.
War itself takes on a kind of horrible normality.
Im not a big fan of the music inThe Story Of GI Joe.
It seems to come crashing in at some moments that I would prefer to leave to silence.
If you like your Westerns big and beautiful,El Doradois the one for you.
Having said that, Mitchum made a few other good ones.
Out Of The Past (1947)
Jacques Tourneur directed this slice of film noir.
And everyone smokes like a chimney.
Im not sure Mitchum looks too bothered in this with the love interest.
Another piece of film noir, Otto PremingersAngel Face(1952), suffers with the same problem.
Still, its Mitchum and Kirk Douglas together who makeOut Of The Pastcome to life.
At least it shows that Mitchum wasnt what he liked to portray in interviews.
Whether he liked it or not, he was a great actor.
His performances deserve to be remembered.
