The Western Films Of Robert Mitchum

Robert Mitchum was--and still is--one of Hollywood's defining stars of Western film. For more than 30 years, the actor played the weary and cynical cowboy, and his rough-and-tough presence on-screen was no different than his one off-screen. With a personality fit for western-noir, Robert Mitchum dominated the genre during the mid-20th century, and returned as the anti-hero again during the 1990s before his death. This book lays down the life of Mitchum and the films that established him as one of Hollywood's strongest and smartest horsemen. Going through early classics like Pursued (1947) and Blood on the Moon (1948) to more recent cult favorites like Tombstone (1993) and Dead Man (1995), Freese shows how Mitchum's nuanced portrayals of the iconic anti-hero of the West earned him his spot in the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Robert Mitchum was--and still is--one of Hollywood's defining stars of Western film. For more than 30 years, the actor played the weary and cynical cowboy, and his rough-and-tough presence on-screen was no different than his one off-screen. With a personality fit for western-noir, Robert Mitchum dominated the genre during the mid-20th century, and returned as the anti-hero again during the 1990s before his death. This book lays down the life of Mitchum and the films that established him as one of Hollywood's strongest and smartest horsemen. Going through early classics like Pursued (1947) and Blood on the Moon (1948) to more recent cult favorites like Tombstone (1993) and Dead Man (1995), Freese shows how Mitchum's nuanced portrayals of the iconic anti-hero of the West earned him his spot in the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

One of the movies' greatest actors and most colorful characters, a real-life tough guy with the prison record to prove it, Robert Mitchum was a movie icon for an almost unprecedented half-century, the cool, sleepy-eyed star of such classics as The Night of the Hunter; Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; Cape Fear; The Longest Day; Farewell, My Lovely; and The Winds of War. Mitchum's powerful presence and simmering violence combined with hard-boiled humor and existential detachment to create a new style in movie acting: the screen's first hipster antihero-before Brando, James Dean, Elvis, or Eastwood-the inventor of big-screen cool. Robert Mitchum: "Baby, I Don't Care" is the first complete biography of Mitchum, and a book as big, colorful, and controversial as the star himself. Exhaustively researched, it makes use of thousands of rare documents from around the world and nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with Mitchum's family, friends, and associates (many going on record for the first time ever) ranging over his seventy-nine years of hard living. Written with great style, and vividly detailed, this is an intimate, comprehensive portrait of an amazing life, comic, tragic, daring, and outrageous.

In Hollywood Hoofbeats, author Petrine Day Mitchum tells stories in page-turning detail, covering topics such as behind-the-scenes portraits of both famous movie horses and those virtually unknown; personal accounts from their trainers, owners, and costars; simple and complex horse stunts, from a fall in mid-gallop to a race across a bridge during a live explosion; and historic black-and-white photos and richly colored contemporary stills.

In 1969--the counter-cultural moment when Easy Rider triggered a "youthquake" in audience interests--Westerns proved more dominant than ever at the box office and at the Oscars. It was a year of masterpieces--The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Once Upon a Time in the West and True Grit. Robert Redford achieved star status. Old-timers like John Wayne, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum appeared in two Westerns apiece. Raquel Welch took on the mantle of Queen of the West. Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin tried their hand at a musical (Paint Your Wagon). New directors like George Roy Hill reinvigorated the genre while veteran Sam Peckinpah at last found popular approval. Themes included women's rights, social anxieties about violence and changing attitudes of and towards African-Americans and Native Americans. All of the 40-plus Westerns released in the U.S. in 1969 are covered in depth, offering a new perspective on the genre.

The horses that captured the moviegoers' hearts are the common denominator in Hollywood Hoofbeats. As author Petrine Day Mitchum writes, "the movies as we know them would be vastly different without horses. There would be no Westerns--no cowboy named John Wayne--no Gone with the Wind, no Ben Hur, no Dances with Wolves..." no War Horse, no True Grit, no Avatar! Those last three 21st-century Hollywood creations are among the new films covered in this expanded second edition of Hollywood Hoofbeats written by the daughter of movie star Robert Mitchum, who himself appeared on the silver screen atop a handsome chestnut gelding. Having grown up around movie stars and horses, Petrine Day Mitchum is the ideal author to pay tribute to the thousands of equine actors that have entertained the world since the inception of the film medium. From the early days of D.W. Griffith's The Great Train Robbery to Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, this celebration of movies promises something for every Hollywood fan... the raucous comedy of Abbot and Costello (and "Teabiscuit") in It Ain't Hay, a classic sports films like National Velvet starring Elizabeth Taylor, a timeless epic with Errol Flynn, and films featuring guitar-strumming cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. INSIDE HOLLYWOOD HOOFBEATS Movie trivia and fascinating anecdotes about the stars of yesterday and today An inside look at the stunts horses performed in motion pictures and the lingering controversies Hundreds of illustrations, including rare movie posters, movie stills, and film clips Updated, expanded text including coverage of new movies and photographs Chapters devoted to action films, Westerns, comedies, musicals, child stars, and more Famous TV programs and their horses including Mr. Ed and Silver (Lone Ranger)

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Nevada--A Romance of the West" by Zane Grey. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Beginning in the mid-1940s, the bleak, brooding mood of film noir began seeping into that most optimistic of film genres, the western. Story lines took on a darker tone and western films adopted classic noir elements of moral ambiguity, complex anti-heroes and explicit violence. The noir western helped set the standard for the darker science fiction, action and superhero films of today, as well as for acclaimed TV series such as HBO's Deadwood and AMC's Breaking Bad. This book covers the stylistic shift in westerns in mid-20th century Hollywood, offering close readings of the first noir westerns, along with revealing portraits of the eccentric and talented directors who brought the films to life.