When I think of the special terror that comes from the vulnerability of the helpless I am haunted by the shock-memory of two films ("The Night of the Hunter" and "Cape Fear") which, by no means coincidentally, both starred Robert Mitchum
Now there is an actor who would no doubt have attracted more critical garlands if he had not been so incredibly popular, if he had not intercepted such a variety of roles, and if a sardonic air of self-deprecation did not tend to obscure a high talent If he had decided to specialize in villains, he might even have come to out-play the great Bogart because, to the menace they both could share, Mitchum was able to add a genuinely frightening brutality...
In 1955 Charles Laughton went round to the other side of the cameras to direct one and only one motion picture Laughton used every cinematic device of camera-angle, sound and lighting to tighten the tensions
Mitchum played a psychopathic preacher with a restrained malice who married and murdered Shelley Winters for her money only to find that her young children had it, and he proceeded relentlessly to terrorize them
Mitchum constructed a really superb characterization of the obsessed drifter, with "love" tattooed on one finger and "hate" on another to point his terrifying parables
Now there is an actor who would no doubt have attracted more critical garlands if he had not been so incredibly popular, if he had not intercepted such a variety of roles, and if a sardonic air of self-deprecation did not tend to obscure a high talent If he had decided to specialize in villains, he might even have come to out-play the great Bogart because, to the menace they both could share, Mitchum was able to add a genuinely frightening brutality...
In 1955 Charles Laughton went round to the other side of the cameras to direct one and only one motion picture Laughton used every cinematic device of camera-angle, sound and lighting to tighten the tensions
Mitchum played a psychopathic preacher with a restrained malice who married and murdered Shelley Winters for her money only to find that her young children had it, and he proceeded relentlessly to terrorize them
Mitchum constructed a really superb characterization of the obsessed drifter, with "love" tattooed on one finger and "hate" on another to point his terrifying parables