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Supporting Character Spotlight: Thomas Mitchell

6/1/2012

 
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Thomas Mitchell as Uncle Billy, with Jimmy Stewart in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1947)

1939 has long been regarded as an amazing year for movies…the gold standard against which all other years of Hollywood's output are compared. 1939 also happened to be a banner year for the great character actor Thomas Mitchell (1892-1962). Perhaps best known today for playing the lovable yet absent-minded Uncle Billy in the Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1947), Mitchell featured in meaty roles in five - count ‘em, five! - all-time classics in 1939. It’s a marvelous string of performances, working for a virtual "Who’s Who" gallery of great directors, each made in a quick, sustained succession that few actors could ever dream of matching.

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Mitchell started out the year playing the alcoholic Doc Boone, one of the assorted passengers aboard John Ford’s Stagecoach. Among his many other facets, Mitchell played drunks very well. His Doc Boone is a man fallen into disillusion and disarray, the prototypical philosophical drunkard. Yet he is redeemed when he is forced by emergency circumstances to sober up and help deliver  Lucy Mallory’s baby. Mitchell gives a typically warm, wry performance, nicely complementing the two upright leads (John Wayne and Claire Trevor). Ford’s archetypal western has a simple story yet is rich in character and action, and is peppered with those scenes of poetic beauty so characteristic of the director.

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Next, Mitchell moved on to Howard Hawks’ hard-boiled aviation adventure, Only Angels Have Wings. Here he played Kid Dabb, right-hand man to daredevil cargo pilot Geoff Carter (Cary Grant). This was Mitchell’s beefiest part in this stellar year, and he makes the most of it, giving some real depth and shading to his crusty sidekick role. He shares many fine scenes with Grant, establishing a tough yet tender friendship in a series of finely-observed touches, such as the Kid's inability to light a cigarette without Geoff's help. Like most of these 1939 classics, the supporting cast here is fantastic all the way down the line: Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Sig Ruman, Noah Beery, Jr. and many others.

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Only Angles Have Wings is packed with great dialogue, suspenseful, death-defying flying scenes and tropical atmosphere (defiantly palpable despite the studio-bound sets), and is one of Hawks' best cinematic explorations of his code of male professionalism, of strong. silent types doing a dangerous job with maximum skill and minimal fuss, and the tough women who learn to live and even thrive in their world. It’s a well-regarded movie that isn’t quite as famous as it deserves to be. Mitchell’s performance, more edgy and less cuddly than his usual (the same could be said of Grant’s atypical performance), is one of the main reasons the film is so effective.

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Mitchell continued his winning streak by next appearing in Frank Capra’s political satire-cum-fable, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He plays cynical Capitol Hill press reporter Diz Moore, friend of equally-jaded Senatorial aide Clarissa Saunders, who sniffs a story in the surprise naming of political noob Jefferson Smith (James Stewart, in one of his finest early-career moments). Mitchell proves his mastery of the breezy, rapid-fire patter so common to reporter speak in early Hollywood films. He has many amusing scenes with Arthur, but his true moment to shine comes when he confronts an enraged Mr. Smith with the bitter truth of his puppet position.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington expertly mixes dewy-eyed idealism and patriotic flag-waving with a world-weary, sarcastic acceptance of an American political system riddled with corruption and greed. Mitchell sits easily alongside such heavyweight scene-stealers as William Demerast, Eugene Pallette and Claude Rains. The film's message still rings out clear and undimmed today, over 70 years later.

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Next came an appearance in one of those rare classic movies that nearly everyone, even those who don’t give a hoot for old movies, knows well. I’m talking about Gone With the Wind, easily one of the most beloved movies of all time. Mitchell played Gerald O’Hara, master of Tara, papa to spoiled brat extraordinaire Scarlet O’Hara. Mitchell is but one of many fine supporting players that populate producer David O. Selznick’s epic. He gives a very fine, at times even touching, performance, but it, like most everything else, gets steam-rolled under the film’s massive (and admittedly impressive) scale, and fixation on the tiresome (if flawlessly played) Scarlet character. 

Mitchell got to work with not just one, but three talented directors during the making of this huge hit: George Cukor, Sam Wood and Victor Fleming. Gone With the Wind is a film that I admire very much as an amazing technical achievement, but can’t muster much personal enthusiasm for.  It certainly deserves to be seen in the best possible conditions (I recommend the beautiful Blu-Ray version), and Thomas Mitchell’s contribution is high on the list of the movie’s worthy points.


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Mitchell finished up 1939 with his role as Clopin, King of the Beggars and friend to Esmerelda (Maureen o’Hara) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Another pivotal performance in yet another famous and well-loved classic, yet again overshadowed by a showboating lead actor…this time, Charles Laughton, in an amazing turn as Quasimodo. As good as the supporting cast members are in this picture, they can’t help but be blown off the screen by Laughton’s riveting portrayal. Nevertheless, it was another feather in the cap of the hard-working Mitchell, and a worthy way to finish out his incredible year.

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Mitchell as Columbo.
Besides the aforementioned It’s a Wonderful Life, Mitchell would continue to deliver reliably memorable work in a variety of film and TV appearances over the next 23 years of his life, notably as Tommy Blue in the rousing Technicolor swashbuckler The Black Swan (1942),  Pat Garrett in Howard Hughes’ notorious The Outlaw (1943), the proud father of The Fighting Sullivans (1944), and the mayor in High Noon (1952). He also was the first to bring the famous role of Lt. Columbo to life on stage, before that part was  enshrined forever on TV by Peter Falk. As hard as it is now to imagine anyone else but Falk in the part, I can certainly see Mitchell nailing the slovenly and wily side of Columbo, at any rate.

As it happened, Mitchell wasn’t around to be in the running for the part when it came time for it to move to the small screen. He died of bone cancer at age 70 in 1962, leaving behind a rich legacy of over a hundred film and TV appearances. Thanks especially to his energetic performances in these five masterful films of 1939, plus the holiday perennial It’s a Wonderful Life, Mitchell will go on charming new fans long into the forseeable future.

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Mitchell as Pat Garrett, with Jane Russell, Jack Beutel, Walter Huston and friends in THE OUTLAW (1943)
R.A. Kerr link
6/1/2012 11:46:21 am

Thanks for this look at Thomas Mitchell. What a great actor!

Jeff
6/1/2012 06:34:14 pm

Thanks, R.A.! Yes, he was something, wasn't he? Can you believe that run of films from 1939?

Colin link
6/2/2012 06:33:02 am

Hey Jeff. I have to say Mitchell is a great choice for the subject of a feature article. Kudos to you for doing so. He has long been one of my favourite character actors, a genuinely human face in so many great movies. In fact, a brief look at his credits is enough to make your head spin.

I thought he was phenomenally good in <strong>Only Angels Have Wings</strong>, petty much walking away with the movie. And what a movie that is! I really must get round to doing a piece on it myself one of these days.

A couple of titles you haven't mentioned here, although that's not to be taken as a criticism, are Ford's <strong>The Long Voyage Home</strong> and Lang's <strong>While the City Sleeps</strong>. I thought Mitchell was both effective and affecting in both of these, especially the former.

Jeff
6/2/2012 01:55:05 pm

Hiya Colin,

I had completely forgotten that Mitchell was in THE LONG VOYAGE HOME...good call! I've yet to see WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS; I'm curious about it now, looking at that wonderful cast.

I do hope you write a piece on ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS someday...it's such a outstanding movie. You're so right about Mitchell bringing a "genuinely human" element to his various parts. He had that everyman quality which helped him fit into so many different kinds of films.

Thanks for the comments, as always!

Colin link
6/2/2012 08:04:51 pm

WHILE THE CiITY SLEEPS seems to be a movie that divides people, some see it as lesser Lang (whatever that means) while others rate it highly. I'd place myself in the latter category; I loved it when I first caught a TV broadcast of it many years ago, and was thrilled to finally get my own copy on DVD. I think it's best viewed as a critique of the media, which keeps it fresh and relevant, rather than a straight thriller. All the behind the scenes backstabbing is probably the best part of it.

Jeff
6/2/2012 08:53:11 pm

Watched a few clips on YouTube, Colin, and it looks pretty terrific to me. Will add the DVD to my Amazon wishlist queue. Thanks for extra info!

mally link
2/28/2017 01:30:31 pm

I have been trying for some time to find the film where Thomas Mitchell was on a boat. The film started with a song. The words to went. From Peru to honolulu to the rocky shows of mine from the river plates of Bristol to the sunny costs of space where the harbour lights are glowing and there's trouble in the air you can bet your bottom dollar that glencannon will be there.


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