Stewum

Turner Classic Movies recently showed a documentary entitled James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces Of America.  I'm not sure why.

The idea behind the doc is a stretch.  These two simply don't go together.  They arose in different eras (pre and post WWII) and, while they had different screen types, and appeared in different sorts of movies, weren't representative of the two sides of America (whatever that means).

So we end up with two malnourished biographies of Stewart and Mitchum, padded with a lot of shallow analysis about how their films represented something about the United States.

Stewart and Mitchum knew each other, but it's not like they were lifelong buddies, as were Stewart and Henry Fonda (who deserve to have their story told side by side).  The documentary tries to make something out of how they died one day apart, but that's grasping at straws.

Late in their careers, Mitchum and Stewart appeared together in a version of The Big Sleep.  It's an undistinguished movie, but I'd rather watch that.