by cinephiles. Where Danger Livesrn(1950) is prime noir. His Kind of Womanrn(1951), an extravagant pre-postmodernrnnoir experiment, remains highly appealingrntoday. (Ironing his money, Mitchum’srncharacter declares, “When I’mrnbroke, I press my pants.”) Angel Facern(1952) is high on the list of ?7o/rs—it wasrnone of Jean-Luc Godard’s favorite Americanrnfilms. The Night of the Hunterrn(1955) is remarkable for many reasons.rnThe only film directed by Charles Laughton,rnHunter—which is American Gothicrnto the max—depends altogether on thernriveting performance of Mitchum, inrnspite of its extravagant retro stylistics. Nornone who has seen Harry Powell, withrnL-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattooed on hisrnfingers, has ever forgotten this peak ofrnMitchumness. Cape Fear (1962) sharesrnsuch a distinction: Max Cady—snide, insinuating,rncunning, and as at home inrndark water as an alligator—is a monsterrnwithout a fright-wig in a film whoserndaunting ambivalence may be underestimatedrneven today.rnBut having embodied the noir cyclernfor nearly two decades, Mitchum wasrnmore than prepared for neo-noir. ThernFriends of Eddie Coyle (1973) showedrnsomething of his range, as if we had notrnsuspected the extent of it already.rnFarewell, My Lovely (1975) is a lovingrngoodbye to the 40’s, a superb retro-pastichernof the world that Raymond Ghandlerrnhad imagined and that Mitchum,rnwho had known Chandler, had bothrnachially lived in and made “real” on filmrn30 years before. As the years went by,rnMitchum was more and more an iconrnout of context, often wasted in dubiousrnprojects. He had a cameo in the disastrousrnremake oi Cape Fear (1991), asrnHollywood increasingly lost touch withrnitself. Toward the end, Mitchum appearedrnin a hip neo-Western called DeadrnMan (1995). In a way, that was fitting.rnHe had become a totem, and looked it.rnThe particular reason for which Irnpicked up Lee Server’s biographyrnwas the same that had driven me throughrnso many other books about RobertrnMitchum. I wanted to know all I couldrnfind out about Mitchum’s remarkablernThunder Road (1958), and I found Server’srntreatment quite satisfactory. I wantedrnto understand why I had rememberedrnthat movie so well for over four decades,rnsomething in which I was hardly alone.rnThunder Road remains a cult classic today.rnWhen it was released, it was a hitrnthat recycled across the South for years—rna case of Hix Don’t Nix Stix Pix —andrnMitchum’s recording of “The Ballad ofrnThunder Road” was twice a hit on the nationalrncharts. And to know ThunderrnRoad, you have to know Mitchum, whornwrote the story, wrote the songs, producedrnthe film and starred in it, andrnhired his son James to play his brother.rnThunder Road has been seen as a roadrnmovie, as a hillbilly movie, as the progenitorrnof many trashy drie-in movies andrneven of—God help us —The Dukes ofrnHazzard. But Mitchum’s most personalrnfilm can be understood more productivelyrnin other ways.rnThunder Road is a thriller about arnwhiskey-runner, Luke Doolin, who isrnchased by the revenuers and muscled bvrnthe encroaching Mob. He oscillates betweenrnthe Rillow Valley and his familyrnand the nice girl who pursues him, andrnMemphis, where he delivers the goodsrnand sees the chanteuse Francie (playedrnby Keely Smith). His combative temperamentrnis offset by his melancholy, becausernhe knows he does not fit in with developments.rnHe urges his brother tornembrace a technical career, reserving thernspeed and the violence for himself As hernsays, “Someday I’ve got to fall.” The dynamiternwith which the goons destro)’ hisrncar and his counterpart in a plot to destroyrnhim is also the explosive that thernfeds use to blow up the stills. Paradoxically,rnthe technological advancementrnthat soups up his Fords will also renderrnhis people’s way of life obsolete. Luke isrndoomed. His final crash was pirated asrnstock footage in They Saved Hitler’s Brainrn(1963). Sic transit gloria mundi.rnFortified by rockabilly music, byrnArthur Ripley’s location shooting, b’ thernlocals who filled the movie with authenticrnpresence and tones, and even by endearingrncontinuity errors and other signsrnof cheap production values. ThunderrnRoad is, I think, the greatest of B movies.rnJohn Belton, writing in 1976, saw ThunderrnRoad as a personal work keyed to “thernself destructive aspects of Mitchum’s personality.”rnIn a brief comment in thernshrewdest book on Mitchum before Server’s,rnDavid Downing (1985) has graspedrnthe structure of the film behind thernthriller surface, the polarity between RillowrnValley and Memphis, between familyrnand Francie. Seeing the film as “per-rnaded by melancholy,” he also sees it asrnan allegory of its creator’s ambivalencesrnand frustrations: “Making movies hasrnbeen Mitchum’s Thunder Road.”rnThe most instructive comments onrnThunder Road that I have seen appear inrnJ.W. Williamson’s striking Hillbillylandrn(1995). Williamson’s broad sweep helpsrnhim to view the film as the progenitor ofrnmany a Southern road moie—and notrnwithout reason. This very breadth, however,rnflattens out our sense of perspective,rnsince Thunder Road towers over any otherrnsuch film. Even so, Williamson understandsrnthat Thunder Road changedrnthe view of the hillbilly as an “exotic” byrntreating the moonshining business fromrnthe inside—it shows the community preciseh’rnas a community, and never as eccentricrnor villainous. He knows, too, thatrn”the movie . . . constructs a full-fledgedrntragedy and introduces a hero, LukernDoolin, who must die for his people.”rnWilliamson identifies two symbols,rnplaced there by Mitchum, that allow usrnread the film. The first is the pennantrnhanging on his bedroom wall: the “battlernpennon of the 52nd Regiment, 7th ArmyrnDivision,” an explicit sign of Doolin’srndoom. As one of his father’s peers, JessernPenlon, says “He’s got a machine gunner’srnattitude and death don’t faze himrnmuch.” Luke Doolin, alienated by experiencernfrom his community, cannot relentrnfrom his destructive and self-destructiverncourse. The other symbol is “thernominous bird of freedom, the whippoorwill.”rnKeely Smith as Francie singsrnMitchum’s song three times, and we arernreminded that The Whippoorwill was thernfilm’s original tide. Williamson goes sornfar as to point out, brilliantiy, that whenrnDoolin leaps from Carl Kogan’s windowrnonto a convenient dump truck loadedrnwith sand, he flies like a free but doomedrnbird himself, one who cannot be manipulatedrnby the music of Kogan’s tapernrecorder. Here we must add that “ThernBallad of Thunder Road” identifiesrnDoolin as a “whippoonvill” in its secondrnline. We may add that, when Luke firstrngoes to see his daddy at the still and tellsrnhim about the death of Niles Penlon, hisrnfather replies about having heard arncorpse-bird.rnI am dissatisfied not so much withrnWilliamson’s treatment oi Thunder Roadrnas with his category, “hillbillies.” Neitherrnam I comfortable with the exclusive associationrnoi Thunder Road with junk likernany number of road mo ies about goodrnold boys. So how should Thunder Roadrnbe classified? I have hvo answers that Irnhope will renew appreciation for thisrnoldie-but-goodie.rnThe first is to place the film in the cate-rn24/CHRONICLESrnrnrn