Category Archives: Robert Mitchum

Book review: Hard-Boiled Hollywood

Posted on April 4, 2018 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

I challenge anyone to get more than a few pages into Jon Lewis’s 2017 revisionist history of post-war Hollywood, without thinking about the parallels to Harvey Weinstein scandal, and all the terrible tales about America’s movie capital that have flowed from it. As Lewis’s book demonstrates, Hollywood – both in the temporal and fantasy sense (and both play a role in this book) was never any different. Arguably, it used to be far, far worse.

Lewis’s book doesn’t deliver a lot of new information or historical research about Hollywood. What it does deliver, in spades, is the meticulous collection, collation and synthesis of a huge amount of pre-existing research, media commentary and popular culture folk law, which he weaves together into a cogent and comprehensive overview of post-World War II Hollywood, and the various power players, criminals, film stars and fringe dwellers, and how they interacted with a studio system in the throws of major transition.

The book touches on lots of familiar names: Robert Mitchum and his famous drug bust; Frank Sinatra, already on the start of his trajectory towards conservatism, and his famous stoush with celebrity columnist, Lee Mortimer; the bullying, manipulative HUAC stooge, Cecile B DeMille; Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, and his close ties to the studio system, just to name a few.… Read more

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Posted in Book Reviews, Megan Abbott, Robert Mitchum, True crime

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Mud, madness and masculinity: William Friedkin’s Sorcerer

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

scheiderPerfect films usually only ever appear so in retrospect. A case in point is Sorcerer, William Friedkin’s 1977 reimagining of the Henri-Georges Clouzot 1953 classic, The Wages of Fear.

The gloriously remastered print of Sorcerer, showing as part of the Melbourne International Film Festivals ‘Masters and Restorations’ program, is an incredible tale of failed masculinity, predatory capitalism and madness.

It was a commercial flop upon release, only recouping nine million of its original twenty one million dollar budget, largely due to appearing at almost the exact same time as the first instalment of Star Wars. Friedkin viewed it as the toughest job of his career. Shooting was littered with accidents and problems, including the film’s riveting central scene, where trucks must cross a rickety rope and timber bridge over a raging river in the middle of a fierce tropical storm. The sequence, due to weather and other reasons, occurred over two countries and took three months to shoot.

Three men, on the run from past mistakes, have ended end up in a run down, impoverished town in an unspecified Latin American banana republic (the real location being the Dominican Republic, which at the time was under an actual military dictatorship).

Jackie (Roy Scheider) was part of a heist on a Catholic Church that ended in a car crash in which all the other members of the gang are killed.… Read more

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Posted in 70s American crime films, Gene Hackman, Melbourne International Film Festival, Neo Noir, Robert Mitchum, Roy Scheider

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The heist always goes wrong, part 1: ten of the best heist movies ever made

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 34 Comments

asphalt01I love a good heist film.

I love the genius and intricacy of their plots and the variations they come in, whether it be the all star team assembled for a job or the desperate ex-cons trying for one last score.

But most of all I love them because of the golden rule of all good heist films – for whatever reason, the heist always goes wrong.

What do you need for a good heist?

You need a plan for actual heist itself, the getaway, and moving, storing and fencing whatever it is you’ve stolen. The more complicated the plan, the more likely it is that something will go wrong.

You need a crew of people; one man or woman alone cannot do a heist. This introduces the human element and all the problems that come with it, the greed, suspicions, jealousies and uncertainties.

I’ve been thinking for a while now about what my top ten-heist films would be and the following list, in no particular order, is it.

The robbery itself is almost immaterial to how I rate a good heist film. What I like is the context and atmosphere in which the heist takes place and inevitable problems that arise after it’s been pulled off. And the darker and more broken things get, the better the film is in my book.… Read more

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Posted in 60s American crime films, 70s American crime films, 80s American crime films, Angie Dickinson, Charles Durning, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Ernest Borgnine, Film Noir, Gene Hackman, Heist films, James Caan, Jim Brown, Peter Boyle, Robert Mitchum, Stanley Baker, Sterling Hayden, Sydney Lumet, Yaphet Kotto

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Killing Them Softly

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Last week I finally watched Killing Them Softly, a film I’ve wanted to see for ages. Living in Australia, it’s not often I get one up on my American readers in terms of seeing a major release movie before they do. But for some reason, Killing Them Softly is not out yet in the States.

So, for those of you who are going to have to hang on a little longer to watch it, let me assure you, it is well worth the wait.

For Australian readers, all I can say is get thee to a cinema now and see this film.

Killing Them Softly is based on the novel Cogan’s Trade by George V Higgins. It’s the story of an enforcer cum hit man who is brought in to investigate a robbery of a mob protected card game.

Higgins was also the author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which was made into one of the best, if not the best, heist movie ever made (and which I reviewed on this site here in 2010).

It’s hard to exaggerate just how influencial the movie version of The Friends of Eddie Coyle is. Released in 1973, it is a no frills depiction of desperate men doing whatever they have to do to stay one step ahead of each other and the law.… Read more

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Posted in 70s American crime films, Crime fiction, Crime film, George V Higgins, Robert Mitchum

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Psycho preacher alert: Heath Lowrance’s The Bastard Hand

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Ever since seeing Robert Mitchum as Harry Powell in the 1955 classic, Night of the Hunter, I’ve had a thing for itinerant unbalanced evangelical preachers.

Which is one reason I enjoyed Detroit-based writer Heath Lowrance’s debut novel, The Bastard Hand, so much.

The book is narrated by Charlie, a drifter fresh out of a psychiatric care where he was put after killing a policeman. He’s having a few problems adjusting to post-institutional life, little things, like the fact his hands glow with the power of God in the presence of wrongdoers.

After getting mugged within hours of arriving in Memphis, Charlie befriends a Baptist Reverend called Phineas Childe, agreeing to accompany him to the town of Cuba Landing, where the Reverend will be working.

Although Childe is no match for Mitchum’s Powell in the killing stakes, he is nonetheless a lying, drinking, womanizing, sleazy opportunist who manages to be charming and menacing at the same time.

Lowrance takes the reader on a wild ride through the corruption and deceit that bubbles away beneath the surface of Cuba Landing. Along the way we meet some great characters, including a couple of backwoods moonshiners, a bent mayor and his cop flunky, and a stick up gang of crack heads.

The Bastard Hand is by turns a lurid hard-boiled suspense novel and an elegant piss take of evangelical religion and small town mores.… Read more

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Posted in Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Noir fiction, Robert Mitchum

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