By David in TN
saturday, may 31, 2025 at 12:51:00 p.m. edt
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Don Siegel’s The Big Steal (1949), with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix, Ramon Novarro and John Qualen.
Film Noir Guide: “Army Lieutenant Mitchum is hunted by his superior officer (Bendix) after being falsely accused of being in a military payroll heist. The real thief (Knowles) is in Mexico to launder the hot dough through an art-loving fence (Qualen). Along the way, Mitchum meets up with Knowles’ ex-fiancee (Greer), who’s trying to get back the to [sic] grand that Knowles stole from her. Unwilling allies, Mitchum and Greer track Knowles through rural Mexico, while they are in turn pursued by an increasingly frustrated Bendix.
“It’s a wild and enjoyable ride, full of plot twists, witty dialogue, nicely staged fistfights and some hysterical slapstick. The usually laid-back and droopy-eyed Mitchum is remarkably energetic. Greer is delightful as his equally dynamic partner. Silent film star Novarro plays a savvy Mexican police inspector who enjoys practicing his English. (The inept attempts at Spanish by Mitchum and Bendix are hysterical).”
David in TN: The Big Steal began filming just after Robert Mitchum was busted for marijuana. It was thought it would harm Mitchum’s career, but it made him more popular than ever.
Saturday, May 31, 2025
The following crime picture has nothing to do with the 2020 election: TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Daniel Mainwaring, Gerald Drayson Adams, Richard Wormser and Don Siegel’s The Big Steal (1949), with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix, Ramon Novarro and John Qualen
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4 comments:
Mitchum's drug bust "made him more popular than ever"? That sounds like a dubious correlation. Yeah, a jury let him off the hook, like they let Fatty Arbuckle go free a few decades back (Americans did love their movie stars), but since dope was still socially frowned on and hardly something the average American partook of, they probably felt he was set up, which I think was his excuse in court.
This book is an excellent bio of Mitchum, and explains the drug bust incident in detail:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/903058.Robert_Mitchum
N.S. calls Brando "The Bum," but this guy was the REAL bum, a total lowlife with contempt toward everything. He supposedly got his cynical viewpoint riding the rails in the Depression, seeing Life at its worst (that's also where he got the drug habit- marijuana was considered "the poor man's liquor" at that time). Steve McQueen became a Hollywood pariah due to his ill behavior, yet Mitchum did the same and got away with it (like luring women with drugs, then slapping them around if they didn't give him what he wanted). He also treated the higher-ups like dirt, yet was never without work. His best role, in my estimate, was in CAPE FEAR- that WAS Mitchum!
-RM
I'd rather see Mitchum than Michael B Jordan or Denzel Washington and I'd rather see Rita Hayworth instead of any negress actress,though I haven't seen more than a handful of movies of either of the White actors.
--GRA
There was nothing "dubious" about Robert Mitchum's popularity increasing after the drug bust. It fit, or didn't detract from, Mitchum's bad boy anti-hero persona. A few years later the LA courts and DA's office threw out the charges. On the other hand, the starlet Mitchum was with, Lila Leeds, had her career sidetracked.
The Big Steal did well at the box office and Rachel and the Stranger was RKO's biggest hit of the year according to Wiki. Mitchum was a prominent leading man for a long time.
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Joseph H. Lewis' The Undercover Man (1949) with Glenn Ford, Nina Foch, James Whitmore, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso.
Film Noir Guide: "Despite the film's misleading title, nobody goes undercover in this one. Ford plays a Treasury agent out to bust a mobster referred to only as 'the Big Fellow,' but who obviously is supposed to be real-life gangster Al Capone. Foch is Ford's long-time suffering wife, and Whitmore, in his film degut, plays a hot-headed agent eager for some action.
"Kelley is appropriately despicable as the mob's attorney, and noir veteran Caruso is good as the deadbeat dad and mob bookkeeper who tries to make a deal with Ford. Witnesses are rubbed out, juries bribed, and agents' families threatened. but in the end, as we all know, the Big Fellow goes up on income tax evasion charges.
"Director Lewis does a fine job with this suspenseful drama, also known as The Chicago Story.
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