Programmed November 2021

Robert Mitchum: Playing It Cool

Featuring a new introduction by critic Imogen Sara Smith Original Hollywood bad boy Robert Mitchum’s blend of rugged masculinity, antiauthoritarian attitude, and lightly bemused irony made him one of the defining faces of postwar film noir, a genre upon which he left an indelible mark in stone-cold classics like Out of the Past , Crossfire , and Angel Face . Unnervingly at home in antihero roles, he embodied some of the most frightening villains in all of cinema, including the menacing, knuckle-tattooed preacher in Charles Laughton’s dark fairy tale The Night of the Hunter and the psychotic ex-con out for revenge in the terrifying home-invasion thriller Cape Fear . But out of the noir shadows, Mitchum’s nonchalant air and unforced naturalism lent something special…