James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces of America

This is a fascinating contrast of the very different careers of the two men and American culture through the most prolific decades of their work. It's not the world's greatest documentary; it has its flaws. Still, I found it incredibly ambitious in scope, and impressed with the extant to how, albeit unevenly, the documentary managed both to successfully shine light on how the work of these iconic actors reflected the polars of American culture, and how in turn American culture shaped the lives of the men themselves.

For me, it earns its 10 for that ambition and extent of success. Give it a whirl. You will not see a Hollywood history documentary quite like this one.

I do not need a sermon from Victoria Tennant on the United States needing to "grow up". Why not just have a nice documentary about two Hollywood stars and leave the bias out? It was nice to see film footage and the daughters' memories, but this was a wasted attempt at honoring Messrs. Mitchum and Stewart. Disappointed.

"James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: Two Faces of America" is a documentary that's aired on TCM and features interviews with a variety of folks...including a daughter of Jimmy Stewart as well as Robert Mitchum. I enjoyed the interviews of the daughters very much and it left me wanting to hear more from them about their lives with their famous fathers. As for the theme of the documentary, it just didn't work for me. It felt as if the filmmakers were trying to create some theme by using the two actors but the comparisons and differences seemed unimportant...as well as their context with recent US history. It almost felt as if their choices of actors to talk about was purely because the daughters knew each other and liked each other...but Robert Mitchum and Jimmy Stewart themselves didn't seem to have much in common OR much that was all that different. At times interesting, but as I said above, I just wanted to hear more from the daughters and less from everyone else.

By the way, there was a factual error I noticed in one interview. A guy was trying to say that WWI and WWII were different because in WWI there was no draft in the USA...because so many people volunteered. But in actuality, 2.8 million men were drafted in WWI...and 2.8 million is pretty significant compred to zero.

A rather misguided documentary on the life and times of two great actors that has way too much on the times, especially McCarthyism and Vietnam, and not nearly enough on the lives and, more specifically, the body of great work that these two Hollywood legends managed to amass. Shamefully omitted are scenes from such classic Stewart works as "Mr. Smith", "Flight Of The Phoenix", "Anatomy Of A Murder" or any of the revisionist westerns he did with Ford or Mann. As for Mitchum we get none of his finest work, either, movies like "Out Of The Past", "Friends Of Eddie Coyle", "Cape Fear", and "Home From The Hill".

Beyond the above problem is the basic wrongheadedness of the film's thesis which is, as I understand it, that Stewart's films represent the hopeful, lighter part of American culture while Mitchum's embody its dark side. This is, to put it charitably, way too simplistic, especially on Stewart's end.. Any non superficial viewing of films like "Vertigo" (arguably Stewart's greatest role, which here is also given short shrift)), "Naked Spur" and "Phoenix" will show that much of his work, especially post WW2, had a definite, disturbing cast to it. And while Mitchum's movies largely inhabit a negative space there are notable exceptions, works such as "Out Of The Past", "El Dorado" and "Longest Day", none of which are analyzed here, that show that Mitchum was quite comfortable in vulnerable, hopeful or conventionally heroic modes.

So all in all, a less than satisfying documentary. Best thing about it are the subjects TV interviews which reveal large supplies of humor, sensitivity and intelligence that go a long way toward belying the notion that actors are dumb. Give it a C plus.

First time I saw this was at the Coronado Film Festival. Audience was overwhelmed, and Mrs. Mitchum attended for a presentation (she's a sweetheart). This film is so special but in a good sense, much more than a straight and casual good guy vs bad guy, It goes very deep into one can call the American dilemma, the bipolar kind of stuff. Cannot really go into much details as I don't want to spoil any of the many surprises. What I can say is that the archives are tremendous, the daughters of of both icons so moving and generous, and Leonard Maltin is so great to watch. The 10/10 is for the longer version (saw a shorter one earlier this year, although it's still great, it's not as great as the 80 spectacular minutes). If you can find it, then go for it.