Robert Mitchum at 100

Mitch would have turned 100 today. I've written three articles for Criminal Element celebrating the actor's centennial. In the first, I take a look at his Westerns. A sample:

Innovative Western artfully directed by Raoul Walsh that noir historian Jake Hinkson (The Big Ugly, The Posthumous Man) calls, “… one of the premier examples of Neurosis In The West.” Controversial topics like repressed memory, hallucinations, and a passing hint of incest are broached in this cutting-edge production. 

Both Montgomery Cliff and Kirk Douglas were considered and rejected for the role. Mitchum, known as “the soul of film noir” for classics like Out of the Past (1947), took the dark, tortured outsider and easily adapted it to the Old West while hardly missing his fedora and trench coat.