I know that this is a long post but I do not want to cut it. Back in the mid late 1980’s when I first began working at Movie Place,we had a customer who knew of my longtime obsession with Robert Mitchum. Nothing wrong with that. This customer had also been the programmer at the old Thalia. A strange but nice man who gave one employee who was (and still is) a great admirer of Jerry Lewis and his teachings a couple of Jerry movie posters known as “one – sheets”. He gave to me a one sheet for a picture that was not yet on home video and that I was dying to see again, having only seen it once. It was a picture called The Big Steal. It is a beautiful poster, very colorful and printed on the lowest grade newsprint that R.K.O. could buy. As these one sheets were never meant to be collected or saved, I knew what I had was rare. It was my first Mitchum poster and still one of my favorites. So is this picture one of my favorites as well.

Looking to cash in on Warner Brother’s successful teaming of Humphrey Bogart / Lauren Bacall, RKO followed suit. Two attractive leads put into dangerous situations with the possibility of sex (no matter how veiled or not) sells tickets. The successes of To Have and Have Not and Big Sleep owe a great deal to the great chemistry between the two leads. The Big Steal was originally to star Lizabeth Scott but a notorious run in with law enforcement changed that. Robert Mitchum was arrested for reefer possession in 1949. This type of thing was considered the kiss of death for a movie star career back then. Asked his occupation for the arrest record Mr. Mitchum replied “former movie star”. Ms. Scott’s agent talked her out of doing this picture with a star whose future was uncertain. R.K.O. had been taken over by Howard Hughes and he started production on this film hoping to get Mr. Mitchum out of serving 60 days in the Malibu minimum security prison. Mr. Hughes’ argument was that the employment of a great many people depended on Mr. Mitchum’s release. The judge said well you should not have started production so soon. With Lizabeth Scott out of the picture a new female lead was needed. Howard Hughes had to look no further than his own back lot. Jane Greer was under contract to R.K.O. but worked sporadically since starring in Out Of The Past with Mr. Mitchum. Their chemistry in that picture was film noir sexuality at it’s best, almost what Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall had. Ms. Greer was being punished for turning down the overtures of Howard Hughes. She was paid but rarely worked. Although Ms. Greer readily agreed to do the picture (She and Mr. Mitchum were close friends until the end of his life) she was however was pregnant. Thus the rush to shoot.

According to one story I read about Robert Mitchum over the years is that he went pretty much from jail to the location in Mexico. They had shot as much as they could with his stand-in and Jane Greer was getting larger. Ironically the location was in the heart of a notorious marijuana growing district. The story continued where Mr. Mitchum, who was accompanied by a parole officer and representative from RKO, purchased a bottle or three of tequila at the border. The bottles were empty when the reached the location. At least he wasn’t driving (take a lesson Ms. Lohan from a real star and let some one else drive).

R.K.O. had been concerned about Mr. Mitchum’s bankablity after his arrest. Drug arrests were not the publicity any one wanted back then (yes that is a thinly veiled stab at the current obsession with drug and alcohol addled “celebrities” and I am using quotes on purpose). Of course such events sold magazines then as they do now. The take on all of this would have been negative. The studio was about to release Rachel and The Stranger starring William Holden, Loretta Young and Mr. Mitchum. The picture was one of R.K.O.’s biggest hits that year. Robert Mitchum had now come into his bad boy / rebel persona, in a good way.

The story is simple – an innocent man is accused of something and sets out to prove his innocence and catch the bad guys. All the while he is being pursued by a trigger happy lawman. What separates this picture from the run of the mill innocent man scenario is the nice touch of a multiple chase, a good director and a great script. Lt. Duke Halliday (Mitchum) is chasing Jim Fiske (Patric Knowles) while being chased by Capt. Vincent Blake (William Bendix) and they are all being followed by Inspector General Ortega (Ramon Novarro) who suspects things are not what they seem to be. The charming Jim Fiske has ripped off his beautiful fiancé Joan ‘Chiquita’ Graham (Jane Greer). The “Chiquita” is a nickname bestowed upon Joan from Duke. � Together they chase Fiske all over the Mexican countryside while being chased and shot at by Captain Blake. Of course during their road trip a relationship develops with the help of some smart, funny and witty dialogue. It is a fun fast movie and nobody can call a woman “chiquita” quite the way that Mr. Mitchum does. I’ll bet Lizabeth Scott wished she never listened to her agent.

This is the third picture to be directed by Don Siegel, in a long and fruitful career. Mr. Siegel had spent the late 1930’s through the mid 1940’s as a montage director and editor at Warner Brothers. He had wanted to direct but Jack Warner found him to be invaluable as a montage director and editor. The Warner Brothers finally gave him a chance in 1946 with The Verdict starring Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet and then again in 1949 with Night Unto Night starring Ronald Reagan. He followed that with The Big Steal. Mr. Siegel was known to be an excellent director of tight and intelligent “B” pictures and would go on later to direct Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Charley Varrick, Dirty Harry, The Beguiled and John Wayne’s last film, The Shootist.

When my daughter was seven, she was home sick from school one day. � She had been asking me for years all sorts of questions about Robert Mitchum and my posters. “What is that one about” she would say as a toddler. When she started reading she would say “daddy what is Cape Fear about” or “daddy why is Robert Mitchum holding a knife to that boy’s neck in the Night Of The Hunter”. Tough questions with no easy answers. She also expressed a desire to see a Mitchum movie. The Big Steal was the safe bet. She loved it and called me “Chiquita”, in her best Robert Mitchum voice, for a week. What I am saying is this picture, a joy to watch, is safe for the kids. It is one of my favorites, a Movie Place favorite and now one of my daughter’s favorites.

Tuesday October 14th at 4:00PM

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