DVD/Video Releases
See which other Mitchum films are available on DVD.
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Media
Reviews of the Ryan's Daughter DVD:
Oregon Live:
Director Lean and scenarist Robert Bolt's Madame Bovary in World War I Ireland drama is gorgeous, sometimes awesome, but slow. She's wed to stodgy teacher Mitchum but develops a passion for British Army major Jones, recovering in France from wounds physical and psychic. Extras in the two-disc set explain some of the film's failures. Mitchum did what he wanted. Jones could do little at all -- his role is dubbed. Yanks play the teacher and the major; Brits play all the Irish leads. Jones left film for 26 years, Lean for 14; each made just one more film. The extras are highly engaging, more so than the film. (R) C+ -- Ted Mahar
NY Press
(Excerpt): In the era of swinging and wife-swapping, Ryan's Daughter (a melodrama about adultery) was deemed irredeemably hokey. When new cinematic territory was being charted by M*A*S*H, Five Easy Pieces and, oh yeah, El Topo, Lean's classical style was easy to overlook.
But time has rewarded faithful Lean watchers. This almost impossibly gorgeous intimate epic has earned its own special place in film history.
Read more.
DVDTalk.com:
(Excerpt): The critics really slaughtered David Lean's film, calling it an overblown, overlong piffle of a picture. His last epic had encompassed the entire Russian Revolution. What was this all about? The box office failure of Ryan's Daughter contributed sadly to the demise of 65mm as a camera format for widescreen movies.
There are plenty of people who still feel the same way, but Ryan's Daughter is actually one of David Lean's better films of his later blockbuster period. ... In the history of attempts by big-time filmmakers to do something different and creative, this stands out -- it's an intimate film on an epic scale. Read more.
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In Fond Memory
Shelley Winters in The Night of the Hunter
January 14, 2006:
Shelley Winters passed away at the age of 85 of a heart attack. The two-time Oscar winner (she won twice in the Best Supporting Actress category for A Patch of Blue and The Diary of Anne Frank), had been declining health for some time. She starred only once with Mitchum, in the memorable The Night of the Hunter, as the woman he marries to get his hands on her late husband's stolen money.
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On TV
- The History Channel recently aired The Big House, a program on LA County Jail and some of its famous inmates, including Mitchum,
Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen, Robert Blake, and Charles Manson.
- For complete, current TV listings, visit TV Now's monthly schedule of Robert Mitchum films.
See also, IMDB's TV listings, which include the U.K.
- A new Robert Mitchum television biography, "Poet With an Ax," aired recently on the A&E cable network.
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Books
See more Mitchum-related books on the Books page.
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Events/Screenings
Do you know of an event or film screening of interest to Mitchum fans?
Please send it to Sharon Knolle: sknolle @ sprintmail . com. Thanks.
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Last updated: February 24, 2006