Robert Mitchum and other old badasses (NRR)
shawnald_reagan
318 Posts
I just watched this movie:and it was great. As I wasn't around when Robert Mitchum and other dudes like Steve McQueen were making their mark in film I have no idea what they did that was good. I enjoyed Mitchum in this one as the tired old man that gets dragged back to Japan to kick a little ass once more time. What I want to know is, what other movies/main characters like this should I see?I've never seen Bullitt so I guess that's a good place to start.Any other suggestions? I want to see some ass kickin movies like they did before 1980. Any suggestions?
Comments
See this now.
My favorite Mitchums:
Out of the Past
Friends of Eddie McCoyle (probably the kind of film you're looking for, except Mitchum is more tired than kick-ass in this one)
Night of the Hunter
McQueen-- yeah, Bullit's cool. Getaway is fun and entertaining. I quite like Junior Bonner, too, but it's quite low-key for a McQueen film.
Then follow up with this for the perfect double bill...
I just reserved Get Carter from the library and will work on seeing the others. Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Keep 'em coming.
DUDE. Steve McQueen on the motorcycle. Sayin'.
Just be sure you don't get the crappy sly stalone remake of carter from a few years back. Yuck.
The fact that dude insisted that he do all his own stunts for that is the one single thing that separates him from the crop of the rest of the real tough guys. There's some real bad ass dudes from back in the day, then there's McQueen, the Cooler King.
Make it and I will go there.
Also, straight the F*ck up, don't sleep on motherfucking Richard "The Motherfucking Man" Attenborough.
I remember putting this on at work when it came out, I worked at a video shop... didn't last 10 minutes...
btw... the movie was "Point Blank" w/ Lee Marvin... more then enuff flix with him that are similarly badass... the colour remake of The Killers (Ronny Reagan plays the villain to boot!), Prime Cut, etc...
Speaking of which, there was a whole trend back in the late 60's to early 70's of these 'men on a mission' type flicks with lots of these gritty characters played by the grittiest of actors, no surprise that some actors already mentioned in this thread feature prominently in these films.... Dirty Dozen with Marvin, Charlie Bronson, Jim Brown, etc... Kelly's Heroes with Eastwood and Telly Savalas... Where Eagles Dare, again with Eastwood plus many many more...
Now Clint Eastwood is really a whole 'nother topic...
See "Le Samourai" first though (John Woo remade it as The Killer)...
Two other guys with faces that just exude bad news are Lee Van Cleef and Richard Widmark - very good bad guys.
x1000
Akira Kurosawa who directed those films has been the inspiration of so many American directors it is not even funny.
Yojimbo = A Few Dollars More (Spaghetti Western)= Last Man Standing
Seven Samurai = Magnificent Seven
Hidden Fortress = Star Wars
I also highly recommend the Manchurian Candidate (the original) which features the first martial arts fight in an American film between Frank Sinatra and Henry Silva. It also features a thoroughly evil Angela Lansbury.
As for Western bad assery Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch starring bad ass William Holden is hard to beat.
Also catch Holden in Stalag 17, more German Prison Camp goodness.
Out of the Past
Cape Fear
Night of the Hunter
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Thunder Road
and on Christmas watch Holiday Affair
seriously, before any other Mitchum movies, you MUST watch 'Out of the Past'
60s and 70s: Tomas Milian is cold as ice in a lot of roles and comes correct with the one-liner smart assery. Cosign on Henry Silva, too. Check "Johnny Cool" with him, Elizabeth Montgomery and Telly Savalas
George C. Scott plays a Christian conservative patriarch who finds out his runaway teen daughter has gone deep into the porn biz. Bent on rescuing her, he goes undercover in the seedy world of smut peddlers.
"I'm Big Dick Blaque. I can come 10 times a day. I can keep it hard for 2 hours at a time. I'm a woman's dream. I got a dick hung on me 9 inches long."
And for a change of pace, the noir comedy His Kind of Woman is a nice twist on the genre. Vincent Price is quite good in it as well.
James Coburn
Lee Marvin
Kirk Douglas
Humphrey Bogart
Edward G. Robinson
Richard Widmark
Basically if you want consistent badassedness you need to get a grip on the Film Noir canon and then caper movies of the 60s and 70s.