Excerpt from Lee Server’s Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don’t Care
Director and star proved to be ideally matched. In [Robert] Mitchum, [Jacques] Tourneur had found the most expressive embodiment of his own cinematic aesthetic of eloquent, subversive resistance and oneiric sensuality. Tourneur loved Mitchum’s physical grace, the gliding, pantherlike movements, and his underplaying and powerful silences, his expressive quiescence thrilled the director whose films were among the quietest in the history of talking pictures. He savored Mitchum’s ability to listen in a scene. “There are a large number of players who don’t know how to listen,” said Tourneur. “While one of their partners speaks to them, they simply think, I don’t have anything to do during this; let’s try not to let the scene get stolen from me. Mitchum can be silent and listen to a five-minute speech. You’ll never lose sight of him and you’ll understand that he takes in what is said to him, even if he doesn’t do anything. That’s how one judges good actors.”
In Mitchum’s opposite, the sort who tried “not to let the scene get stolen”, Tourneur might possibly have been thinking of Kirk Douglas. With his explosive starring roles – Champion, Ace in the Hole, Detective Story – still a few years off, Douglas was becoming typed for intelligent, urbane characters, supporting parts. As Whit Sterling, certainly among the most well-spoken and civilized of ruthless racketeers, Douglas gave a brilliantly controlled and charismatic performance, but he could not have been thrilled by another second fiddle part – especially second fiddle to Mitchum, who had already taken from him the lead in Pursued. The two got along well enough off the set, but the rivalry would flare as soon as the cameras began to turn. Since Tourneur was not about to accept any obvious histrionics in his diminuendo world, Douglas was left to try and out-underact Mitchum, an exercise in futility, he discovered. He tried adding distracting bits of business during Mitchum’s lines and came up with a coin trick, running it quickly between the tops of his fingers. Bob started staring at the fingers until Kirk started staring at the fingers and dropped the coin on the rug. He put the coin away. In another scene, Douglas brought a gold watch fob out of his coat pocket and twirled it around like a propeller. This time everybody stared.
“It was a hoot to watch them go at it,” said Jane Greer. “They were two such different types. Kirk was something of a method actor. And Bob was Bob. You weren’t going to catch him acting. But they both tried to get the advantage. At one point they were actually trying to upstage each other by who could sit the lowest. The one sitting the lowest had the best camera angle, I guess – I don’t know what they were thinking. Bob sat on the couch, so Kirk sat on the table, then one sat on the footstool, and by the end I think they were both on the floor.”
Tourneur, no martinet, liked to give his performers a lot of freedom and waited out the one-upmanship antics with a weary grace. “Quoi qu’il arrive, restez calme,” he liked to say.
Actors were actors. One night he was screening the rushes of a scene with Mitchum and Douglas talking to each other on either side of the frame, and he was startled to see how Paul Valentine – placed in the background and without a line of dialogue – had craftily picked up a magazine and was flipping the pages with an altogether distracting intensity, hijacking the scene.
“Oh, Paul,” he said to the actor, “now I have to keep an eye on you, too?”
What a wonderful story about the coin and the watch fob. Iâd seen Out Of The Past long after Kirkâs acting persona was well established and wondered however did they manage to get Kirk so phlegmatic. I put it down to this being young Kirk, someone who hadnât yet established his âshtickâ.
Hysterical – it was a competition over who could act the LEAST. I am sure that that rivalry helped give their scenes some of that incredible intensity. Love the film.
You can even see it in the still: Douglas’s stance more constrained than coiled, his superiority caught mid-sneer, while Mitchum lets the expression on his face hang as loosely as the coat on his shoulders or the cigarette between his fingers.
I always especially enjoy Mitchum when he’s paired with a more histrionic performer. His bemused assessments of Jean Simmons (intrigued), Shelley Winters (contemptuous), above all Vincent Price (what the hell?), all add immeasurably to the respective films’ greatness.
I haven’t revisited this one in far too long. Time to rectify that.
Oh hell yes! His Kind Of Woman, Mitchum with the other Jane – Russell – and Vincent Price as the actor/greatwhitehunter, and a Howard Hughes production to boot. Now that’s entertainment.
Mitchum really can demolish someone just by standing there. The more crazy his scene partner gets, the cooler he is. It’s a killer combo!!
“Oh, Paul,” he said to the actor, “now I have to keep an eye on you, too?”
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Although, there is a serious point behind – these films were shot on actual sets with real stuff all over them. Today, it would be impossible in many movies for Paul Valentine to occupy himself, in character, in the background of a scene, because there would only be a green curtain, and nothing in the shot but the actors. Even if he somehow managed to “listen” and in that way have a connection to the foreground, he could be drowned out by all the sterile CGI crap crammed into the shot afterward.
Studios should hire a guy whose sole job is to stop directors and producers from spoiling their own stuff because they have the budget for it. They wear dark sunglasses, a perpetual bland forwn, and the kind of jackets the police use for drug raids, only instead of saying “FBI” on the back, they’ll say NO.
Hey, let’s scan in some goofy long-necked aliens here, and some antigrav dude who can’t figure out how to pick up his keys off the ground! Hilarious!
NO.
He wouldn’t even say it, he’d just turn around and point to the back of the jacket. We’ll call him the Valentine in Paul’s honor.
Nightfly – there are plenty of films out there that have nothing to do with aliens/super heroes/green-screen shenanigans. Films that are focused on story, actor, and are filmed on real sets. Let’s not paint with too broad a brush here. If your only gauge is local cineplex blockbusters, then yes, it might seem that way, but it’s really not. You may have to seek them out, but that’s why God created movie-fans. We’ll always find the good stuff.
Two of the best films I saw recently – The Ghost Writer, and Mother – are all about the acting. And the plot. Old-school movie-making, out in theatres now.
Reading the Mitchum biography (it’s quite good – I like Server’s stuff – it’s not dumbed down or sycophantic – he has a good basis for talking about the nuts and bolts of film making and acting) has made me want to see Out of the Past again too. It’s been a couple of years. I love Roger Ebert’s review of it – how Douglas and Mitchum both just smoke AT each other thru the whole film – it’s one of the smokiest films ever made. A terrific character study.
“But I’m innocent.”
“Baby, I don’t care.”
Classic.
Sheila – you’re right… I’ve been watching too much of Red Letter Media’s youtube reviews. :) If it weren’t for TCM and your reviews, I’d pretty much be the Comic Book Guy at this point!
I’m lamenting more than actually critiquing, and that’s always over-broad. I just get very frustrated with movies that do the big-budget blockbuster thing at the expense of the story. Whizbangs are no substitute for good characters in interesting situations! It defeats the purpose of having a story to tell in the first place. Not that pretty ‘splosions and mindless fun have no place, but I think audiences are fairly smart. They can tell when they’re being played. Mindless fun that never pretends to be anything else is very satisfying, but when a movie demands that we invest becuase the soundtrack says so, or uses an effect instead of building character or dramatic tension, or tells us to feel something without showing us why the feeling is appropriate…. ugh.
Ideas are inexpensive, and priceless.
But that kind of commerce vs. art thing has been going on since people first started putting up shows for audiences – it’s really nothing new. It’s just that the profits are bigger now, so it seems like the stakes are higher.
As always, you have to make sure you find your own tribe of people with like-minded interests, otherwise you’ll be lost. If I worried about the fact that Nicholas Sparks, a piece of junk writer, is consistently on the NY Times bestseller list, then I might give up hope for all humanity. But I just keep doing what I want to do, reading what I want to read, seeing what I want to see – and I’m lucky, living where I do, that I can see pretty much any movie I want to, in its first public run. So no. I am not limited by Blockbusters. Many blockbusters you would actually have to PAY me to see. Fanboys may rage at me for that, but again, I don’t care – because I’m interested in what I’m interested in, and there will always be a market for good acting, good stories, and intelligent writing/directing/editing.
And I would say – with movies that came out over the past couple years such as The Hurt Locker, The Education, Mother, Ghost Writer, Shutter Island, 500 Days of Summer, Adventureland, Crazy Heart – not to mention foreign films like Nobody Knows About Persian Cats, and Bluebeard, and others – all really good stories and film-making – then there really is no reason to lament.
There’s actually reason to celebrate. There are so many options!
Nightfly – but if you are hellbent on lamenting, then please don’t let me stop you!! I’ve certainly had my moments with that, but it usually has to do with the fact that Mitch Albom is as famous as he is, as rich, Mr. Bestseller, which seems to confirm the view the world has of America being full of imbecilic morons (to quote HL Mencken, my favorite curmudgeon at the moment).
But again: Yes, Albomis a bestselling author. But so is John Banville.
As long as I am not forced to read Mitch Albom, I’ll be all right.
Therefore: I have hope!
(And just should mention as well: Out of the Past was not a smash hit when it first came out. It is only in the years since that its reputation has skyrocketed to the level it is at now. There was plenty of crap that probably made more money that year – but Out of the Past is the last man standing.)
I can be a Johnny One-Note, eh? :)
There’s actually reason to celebrate. There are so many options!
Absolutely. Maybe it’s just the particular bee in my bonnet. Whenever I tell a story, I want it to work whether or not it involves lasers, or the eighteenth century, or luchadore koalas riding dinosaurs. I never want to take the easy way out, the way I see so many “name” films do, and especially the big franchises. If you will, I’m pre-emptively lamenting myself. If by some bizarre cosmic miracle I were the one with the huge budget, I’d hire that guy in the NO jacket to follow me around everywhere.
NO, ‘fly. Talk to the jacket.
…but if you are hellbent on lamenting, then please don’t let me stop you!!
True story – when my wife and I were still just dating, she seriously considered buying me a wooden crate she found at a second-hand store. It was a soap box. “You can keep stuff in it when you’re not up on it!”
I love that woman.
“pre-emptively lamenting myself” hahahahaha
I love that phrase, and I totally know what you mean.
There really is no guy with a NO jacket. Well, Woody Allen has one. Scorses has one. Robert Altman had one. Kubrick. Those guys, due to reputations, can/could do pretty much what they wanted, regardless of financial concerns.
Writers almost never get that!!
Maybe in theatre they do – but even so, you read some of the compromises Tennessee Williams had to make (not just for film, but for theatre – the ending to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for example) – and you realize it’s just part of the job, end-stop. You gotta get a thick skin about it.
But also know when to put your foot down. There’s a great compilation book of interviews with directors called “My First Movie”, and it is chock-full of those stories of compromise, and fear, and terror, and trying to stick to your guns, and winning battles, losing some – I highly recommend it, if you’re interested in the process (either as a spectator or as a potential participant).