User Reviews

Robert Osborne has a low-key interview with stars ROBERT MITCHUM and JANE RUSSELL, who were not only co-stars of several films at RKO but remained lifelong friends.

Mitchum (who died the following year from lung cancer and emphysema), looks haggard and worn, totally unlike the glimpses we get of his screen roles, while Russell looks elegant and has aged well. She's much more at ease than Mitchum until halfway through the segment, where he seems to liven up a little and gives more than simple answers to Osborne's questions.

We learn that neither of them were fond of director John Farrow, who could be nasty to crew members, nor were they ecstatic about working for Josef Von Sternberg, who forbid having food or beverages on the set. They both thought Marilyn Monroe was sweet--and, in Mitchum's words "abused" by the system, and Mitchum couldn't think of any film for which he deserved an Oscar.

They both were fond of Howard Hughes, although Jane admitted that while he was a "sweet gentleman", he didn't know that much about directing films. Most of Osborne's questions are pretty soft ball (in the manner of Larry King), so don't expect any unusual revelations here.

Mitchum looks shockingly bad, but no mention is made of his health problems while the man is obviously in very ill health.

Summing up: Mildly interesting, but sad to see Mitchum way past his prime, a mere shadow of his former self.

This pretty self-explanatorily-titled episode from a TCM series, moderated by that channel's in-house host Robert Osborne, re-united (for what was to be the last time, since Mitchum died only a year or so later) the stars of two popular Howard Hughes-produced noirs – released by RKO, the Hollywood studio he owned for some time – in the early 1950s. It has been made available on Warner's SE DVD of Josef von Sternberg's MACAO (1952), the dynamite combo's last teaming, notorious for being the renowned but difficult Austrian auteur's unceremonious final brush with the American entertainment industry he had helped elevate – in his best work – to an artistic level that was much imitated but seldom, if ever, equalled!

Anyway, the program does not concentrate solely on this one film (though Russell's description of an incident where Mitchum stood up to the director's dictatorial attitude and subsequently got him replaced by Nicholas Ray is perhaps its highlight!) but rather presents a sketchy run-though of both stars' careers – beginning with Mitchum's inauspicious early appearances in several "Hopalong Cassidy" Westerns and Russell's much-ballyhooed debut in yet another Hughes film, THE OUTLAW (1943), where it is also stated that original director Howard Hawks took an early hike (when the finished film still displays a lot of his touches and concerns!). Incidentally, Russell also mentions how her singing talent was discovered quite by chance! Sometimes, each gives their personal opinion of other luminaries they worked with, either together or separately: most notable among these are two famously tragic figures i.e. Hughes himself (plagued by the OCD complex, which caused him to turn into a recluse and forever be dubbed an eccentric) and Marilyn Monroe (her crippling insecurity sent her to an early grave).

Since Mitchum has made the more notable set of films, it is small wonder Osborne gives him the lion's share of his attention. Even so, the actor has been described elsewhere to have been in rather poor health throughout the episode but, then, he was pushing 80 and, in any case, did put in a bit more in his replies than the laconic types he is known for on-screen! However, at the same time, one is almost refreshed to see him exuding the rebellious cool that made him so unique even in real life – given that he is pretty dismissive of his decidedly illustrious legacy; while he is known to have cited the minor (and still-unwatched) army comedy from 1961 THE LAST TIME I SAW ARCHIE as his favorite role, he makes no such claims here! Unsurprisingly, his own acknowledged best work – in Jacques Tourneur's OUT OF THE PAST (1947), virtually a noir template, and Charles Laughton's one-shot at direction with the stylized, ahead-of-its-time THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955) – are discussed in some detailed and also excerpted. Also dealt with is David Lean's expansive shooting schedule on RYAN'S DAUGHTER (1970; though the date is wrongly listed here as 1967!) for what was essentially an intimate romance, albeit set in troubled times, and of which the star somewhat diplomatically says that he especially enjoyed the remote Irish locale where the filming took place.

I just watched this on the DVD of Macao which was the second of the films made by the two stars mentioned above. Robert Osborne interviewed them before Mitchum's passing several months later and, well, he looks like he knows his time is up. They both offer fascinating stories of the two directors they worked with, neither of whom were saints, as well as some stars they both worked with separately, like Marilyn Monroe. I'll just now say this was a fascinating look at two stars looking back at their career through the years...

Private Screenings: Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell (1996)

*** (out of 4)

Early episode of the series has Robert Osborne getting two legends at once but the end result isn't as good as one might hope. For starters, this episode only runs thirty-minutes, which isn't nearly enough time when you have two people to talk with. Mitchum looks to be in incredibly bad health and would die the following year so perhaps this has something to do with it. I had heard that he was extremely difficult in this interview but I didn't find him too bad as he seemed to get more comfortable as the thing went along. One only wonders how much stuff was left on the cutting room floor as it's obvious there's been quite a bit of editing. When he does talk he manages to tell a few good stories but there's a lot of stuff and a lot of films that he doesn't talk about. Russell appears a lot more comfortable answering the questions but she doesn't get too many as most are thrown Mitchum's way. THE OUTLAW, OUT OF THE PAST, HIS KIND OF WOMAN, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and RYAN'S DAUGHTER are a few of the films mentioned with John Farrow, John Huston and Monroe getting some brief time as well.