Robert Mitchum makes a tired man’s wish for another life convincing. We rate him most highly when his quiet delivery lets us feel for a character while leaving us free to doubt what he says.
Fi1m perspective
In Out of the Past (1947), Robert Mitchum makes Jeff’s cynicism sound as though it costs him the last of his energy. Even the voice-over, which draws us close, cannot quite make us accept his account. He seems practised at telling himself why things happened as they did. We felt for Jeff sooner than we expected, because his tiredness made the wish for another life believable. Mitchum gives us reason to care without requiring us to take everything the man says on trust.
Jacques Tourneur’s film needs that uncertainty, especially when its plotting becomes hard to follow. Mitchum and Jane Greer keep the people worth following through the complications, while Nicholas Musuraca’s photography supplies much of the unease. Mitchum’s heavy-lidded look and spare delivery can suggest someone barely interested in being there; here, we watch closely because the tired man may be editing his own history. The plotting asks for concentration, and Mitchum makes the effort worthwhile.
The early work ran from small parts in Westerns to the breakthrough of The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). Stardom at RKO and noir followed, but the important turn was to let that unhurried manner become threatening. As preacher Harry Powell in The Night of the Hunter (1955), he combines menace with a charisma that makes it more troubling. Cady in Cape Fear (1962) gives him another villain’s part, and another use for his capacity to intimidate.
The limitation is real: underplaying can look like failing to engage, and Mitchum’s reputation for seeming half-asleep cannot simply be waved away as proof of subtlety. There has to be a recognisable feeling behind the apparent indifference, as there is in Jeff’s wish for another life. Farewell, My Lovely (1975) returns him to noir as Philip Marlowe; his later work includes John Dickinson in Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995). We recommend that funny, unsettling Western, with a warning about pauses that do not always repay the patience they demand. For Mitchum himself, start with Out of the Past, and do not mistake feeling sorry for Jeff for believing him.
Biography
Robert Mitchum was an American actor. He was born on 6 August 1917 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and died on 1 July 1997.
His film credits include Out of the Past (1947), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Cape Fear (1962), El Dorado (1966), Scrooged (1988), Cape Fear (1991), Tombstone (1993) and Dead Man (1995), in which he played John Dickinson. His sons James Mitchum and Christopher Mitchum are actors.
