Thunder Road

In 1955 the epically great Robert Mitchum made one of the best films in the history of the medium: NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, co-starring Shelley Winters, the pilot from “Airplane!” as a child, an additional child who is the worst child actor I have ever seen in my life, thus is delightful, and an old and crazy-seeming Lillian Gish. I simply can not recommend this movie highly enough; it simply has to be seen to be believed. It is gorgeous and terrifying and hilarious all at once; it truly could not be better. I watch it several times a month. If you’ve never understood what all the Robert Mitchum fuss is about (or if you’ve horribly never heard of him), here’s your chance.

Thunder Road, made three years later, is not your chance. I think this is the film Mitchum talks about in some interview where he’s cautioning people about not putting their own money into their pictures. He co-wrote, co-directed, and largely financed Thunder Road, and also wrote the theme song for it?? Which is about moonshine. The movie is sort of a car-noir. Moonshine car-noir. Lots of monologues delivered to adoring women. Car chases. The federal government being mad about taxes. Mitchum, while awesome, is not displayed to full advantage here. It really does feel like a student film.

There’s one scene where you can’t hear the dialogue because a frog is croaking so loudly on the soundtrack, and there’s another scene where a cop is like “We’ll get ‘im sure enough” but then in the dramatic pause that follows he awkwardly clanks this water jug against a glass and we both burst out laughing. I think they recorded the whole movie with just one mic and just hoped for the best. There’s also a love interest who is the most stoned-seeming person I have ever seen onscreen, and that’s counting Trainspotting.

What is great about this movie:
– every close up of Mitchum’s face
– this amazing scene where he’s mad at a car mechanic and so he slams a cigarette into the mechanic’s mouth and lights it and somehow this gesture is the most eloquent “fuck you” on earth. Jamming a cigarette into someone else’s mouth while they just stand there! Killer.

What is unintentionally great about this movie:
– at one point Mitchum is explaining to his stoned-seeming secret girlfriend why he needs to keep illegally running moonshine even though he knows that this will be his final run and he’s going to die. He’s telling her about how all he ever wanted was to stay in Croaker’s Gulch or whatever it’s called, with his hillbilly friends, but the government made him fight in a war and now he’s a broken man. And he says this: “I’ve been across the oceans, met all the pretty people, I know how to order in a fancy restaurant, I know what a mobile is.” And the camera cuts away to a mobile just hanging there. A mobile?! What? My old man was like “what, like a Calder mobile?” What kind of a nonsequitur is that? And being emphasized by the cutaway, god, how we laughed.

Mitchum’s adorable son plays his brother in this movie. He could not be cuter. It is very eerie to see Mitchum’s face on somebody else’s face: Genetics are so weird!!! Why are they?

There are so many really hacky car chases, like in the first scene of the film Mitchum’s car flips over and is destroyed but then the next shot is of it driving away, like they just couldn’t re-shoot that other scene so they just said fuck it.

Many amazing monologues about moonshine delivered by what appear to be non-actors. Scene where Mitchum smashes a man’s hat and then jumps out a window. Scene of a car exploding, pretty next-level stuff. Lots of good fake car-driving acting. Shot of Mitchum threatening a loud drunk fat man at a nightclub by tightening his tie; terrifying. Mitchum’s son is so emo! “Ya said ya’d take me, Luke, and you never did!” Father/son drama actually portrayed as brother/brother drama; I’m gonna drive this moonshine car to Memphis and I don’t care that it’s a trap damnit, I’m a man too! Then at the end the girl who loved Mitchum is just like “well here’s his brother I guess he’ll do” and that’s the end.

Also there is an opening voiceover about taxation and how moonshine is wrong, which apparently they put in to make it seem like a social problem movie and thus get it past the censors. Just a little walk down memory lane.

In short: highly recommended

Look at Mitchum’s son!!!!!!!! It’s so weird to see the same face but without the Ultimate Babe Death Ray Energies of the Actual Mitchum. Like it’s not just about the face, ladies, dude’s got all kinds of other stuff going on. If I could go back in time and french one person in all of history it would be Robert Mitchum.