Robert Mitchum

'Tracking the Cat: Robert Mitchum in the West' Where: Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. Screenings at 7:30 p.m. unless noted. When: Friday "Pursued," "Blood on the Moon" Saturday "The Lusty Men," "Nevada" Sunday "The Red Pony" (11 a.m.) July 13 "The Sundowners" July 17 "Track of the Cat" (7 p.m.) July 23 "River of No Return" July 24 "The Wonderful Country" (7 p.m.) July 29 "West of the Pecos," "Rachel and the Stranger" July 30 "El Dorado"

'Tracking the Cat: Robert Mitchum in the West' Where: Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. Screenings at 7:30 p.m. unless noted. When: Friday "Pursued," "Blood on the Moon" Saturday "The Lusty Men," "Nevada" Sunday "The Red Pony" (11 a.m.) July 13 "The Sundowners" July 17 "Track of the Cat" (7 p.m.) July 23 "River of No Return" July 24 "The Wonderful Country" (7 p.m.) July 29 "West of the Pecos," "Rachel and the Stranger" July 30 "El Dorado"

State Assembly candidate Chris Mitchum has decided to drop his bid to unseat Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) in next year's election. In a statement released Thursday, Mitchum, a Santa Barbara Republican and son of the late movie star Robert Mitchum, cited a desire to spend time with his young adult children and to campaign on behalf of an unspecified presidential candidate.

Twenty years ago, Kevin Costner portrayed the young G-man Eliot Ness who received guidance from an older, wiser Chicago cop played by Sean Connery in "The Untouchables." Now Costner is the paternal figure in the action-drama "The Guardian" (Touchstone, $30). As an experienced Coast Guard rescue diver, Costner takes a young recruit (Ashton Kutcher) under his wing. It's predictable, but rescue sequences are effective. Andrew Davis directed.

You can tell the old, retired, slightly run-down gumshoe is back on the job. He offers his younger brother, an ex-cop, a pint of Levy's Select Irish Whiskey to help out. "House brand," he explains. So it goes for Robert Mitchum in "Jake Spanner, Private Eye." But his new movie, airing Nov. 15 on the USA Network, is not the "Farewell My Lovely" or "The Big Sleep" kind of classic Mitchum detective movie.

"Out of the Past," director Jacques Tourneur's 1947 classic film noir, starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer, is considered a benchmark of the dark and disturbing filmmaking style. The movie--in which a California gangster (Douglas) hires a private eye (Mitchum) to track down his mistress (Greer), who shot him and ran off to Acapulco with $40,000--screens tonight at 8 as part of Chapman University's free, 14-week film-noir series.

The cover photo--tough-guy actor Mitchum staring at the camera with a drink in one hand and a curvy model at his side--suggests a soundtrack from a Mitchum film. But no. It's a collection of calypso songs--including one novelty about parents' chagrin over the emerging rock 'n' roll--that was recorded in the '50s by calypso fan Mitchum as a labor of love. It's an affectionate work, but one that hardly rises above the curiosity level.

HOW'D you like to have been the casting director the first day Robert Mitchum walked in for a screen test? "Excuse me, Bob, would you mind opening your eyes? Oh, they are open; OK." Those hooded, sleepy-time eyes would've been only the beginning of the trouble. There'd be that slouch, Mitchum's default posture if his part didn't call on him to execute a specific action. Just that whole casual thing that was going on, as if this young actor wasn't entirely serious about acting.

Robert Mitchum, filmdom's monosyllabic, devil-may-care tough guy whose lizard-lidded eyelids seemed to be forever looking down on a world he found both amusing and profane, died Tuesday at his home in Santa Barbara County. He was 79. Mitchum, frequently seen in films and photos with a cigarette dangling from his lips, died in his sleep of complications from emphysema and lung cancer, said his biographer and friend Jerry Roberts.

"Baby, I Don't Care" is an inspired subtitle for Lee Server's book. It's a line from "Out of the Past," the 1947 film noir (same vintage as the jacket photograph), in which Robert Mitchum's character is listening to one more cock-and-bull story from Jane Greer, the dishonest beauty who has entranced him, and she wants to know, "You do believe me, don't you?" But belief, stability and trust have never weighed on Mitchum's guy as much as mood, self-destruction and being enchanted.

HOW'D you like to have been the casting director the first day Robert Mitchum walked in for a screen test? "Excuse me, Bob, would you mind opening your eyes? Oh, they are open; OK." Those hooded, sleepy-time eyes would've been only the beginning of the trouble. There'd be that slouch, Mitchum's default posture if his part didn't call on him to execute a specific action. Just that whole casual thing that was going on, as if this young actor wasn't entirely serious about acting.

One of the great paradoxes of motion pictures is the almost electric attraction audiences have to screen actors who are gifted at stillness as opposed to, well, being in motion. Think of Steve McQueen's blue-steel impassiveness or Clint Eastwood's granite stoicism or, even, Marilyn Monroe's luminous incredulity. Grab the frame, hold the frame and you, too, can be a legend.

"Baby, I Don't Care" is an inspired subtitle for Lee Server's book. It's a line from "Out of the Past," the 1947 film noir (same vintage as the jacket photograph), in which Robert Mitchum's character is listening to one more cock-and-bull story from Jane Greer, the dishonest beauty who has entranced him, and she wants to know, "You do believe me, don't you?" But belief, stability and trust have never weighed on Mitchum's guy as much as mood, self-destruction and being enchanted.

State Assembly candidate Chris Mitchum has decided to drop his bid to unseat Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) in next year's election. In a statement released Thursday, Mitchum, a Santa Barbara Republican and son of the late movie star Robert Mitchum, cited a desire to spend time with his young adult children and to campaign on behalf of an unspecified presidential candidate.

"Out of the Past," director Jacques Tourneur's 1947 classic film noir, starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer, is considered a benchmark of the dark and disturbing filmmaking style. The movie--in which a California gangster (Douglas) hires a private eye (Mitchum) to track down his mistress (Greer), who shot him and ran off to Acapulco with $40,000--screens tonight at 8 as part of Chapman University's free, 14-week film-noir series.

July came in with a bang, leaving movie lovers whimpering. Because Robert Mitchum died on the first day of the month, and Jimmy Stewart died on the second. It is the end of something. William Shakespeare said, "The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes"--and these were princes. Jimmy the gent, and Bobby the rounder. They seemed to reflect the two sides of the American character, one sunny, one dark. Stewart was the optimist.

No two star actors are alike, of course, and it is far more than a matter of appearances. The survivors are separated from the also-rans because the camera, and the audiences, perceive something beyond the parts and the lines--some internal quality of menace, charm, intensity, wit, sexuality or simply the scars and strengths of real-life experience that are uncommonly interesting. Survive long enough and you become an icon. Hollywood no longer creates icons as numerously as once it did.

. . . Scary thought: "The Night of the Hunter" (1955), which starred Robert Mitchum as a psycho preacher, is being remade for TV--with Richard Chamberlain starring.

The world won't see the likes of Robert Mitchum again. The veteran actor, who died Tuesday at 79, was a true original--tough, laconic, sleep-eyed and sexy. The big, burly, hard-living star was equally at home in war films, film noir, dramas and comedy. The ultimate Hollywood "Bad Boy," Mitchum served a jail sentence nearly 50 years ago for marijuana possession. He refused to conform to the Hollywood code and looked upon the press with disdain and boredom.

No two Hollywood biographies are alike but even as those biographies go, Robert Mitchum, who died Tuesday of lung cancer at 79, was in a class by himself. He was a legend, but never had to work at being a legend. He just lived it. So far as is known, no other actor was arrested for vagrancy in Georgia and literally sentenced to work on a chain gang (180 days, he says; plenty long enough). He spent more time in his young life, from age 12, riding in freight cars than most people spend in coaches.