Mitchell is a
1975The year 1975 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January 28 - George Lucas creates the second draft of what would eventually become Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope...
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
starring
Joe Don BakerJoe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, James Bond villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, and CIA agent Jack Wade in the James Bond films GoldenEye and...
as an abrasive, alcoholic police detective, released by
Allied Artists Pictures CorporationAllied Artists Pictures Corporation started life as a subsidiary of Monogram Pictures in 1946 as an outlet for films with bigger names and higher budgets than Monogram could boast...
in the USA on September 10, 1975.
Very much an
anti-heroIn fiction, an antihero is a protagonist archetype whose character or goals are antithetical to traditional heroism. The term dates to 1714, although literary criticism identifies the trope in earlier literature. - History :...
, Mitchell often ignores the orders of his superiors and demonstrates disdain for by-the-book police work as well as normal social graces. The film also stars
John Saxon-Early life:Saxon, an Italian American, was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Anna and Antonio Orrico, a dock worker. He attended New Utrecht High School and studied acting with famous acting coach Stella Adler and broke into films in the mid-1950s, playing teenage roles...
and
Martin Balsam- Early life :Balsam was born in The Bronx to Jewish parents Lillian and Albert Balsam, who was a manufacturer of ladies sportswear. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he participated in the drama club...
as the criminals Mitchell pursues and
Linda EvansLinda Evans is an American actress known primarily for her roles on television. She rose to fame as Barbara Stanwyck's daughter, Audra Barkley, on the 1960s Western, The Big Valley...
and
Merlin OlsenMerlin Jay Olsen is a former American football player in the National Football League and an actor. He played his entire 15-year career with the Los Angeles Rams and was elected to the Pro Bowl in 14 of those seasons, a current record shared with Bruce Matthews...
in supporting roles as a prostitute and henchman, respectively.
Mitchell is a
1975The year 1975 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January 28 - George Lucas creates the second draft of what would eventually become Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope...
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
starring
Joe Don BakerJoe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, James Bond villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, and CIA agent Jack Wade in the James Bond films GoldenEye and...
as an abrasive, alcoholic police detective, released by
Allied Artists Pictures CorporationAllied Artists Pictures Corporation started life as a subsidiary of Monogram Pictures in 1946 as an outlet for films with bigger names and higher budgets than Monogram could boast...
in the USA on September 10, 1975.
Very much an
anti-heroIn fiction, an antihero is a protagonist archetype whose character or goals are antithetical to traditional heroism. The term dates to 1714, although literary criticism identifies the trope in earlier literature. - History :...
, Mitchell often ignores the orders of his superiors and demonstrates disdain for by-the-book police work as well as normal social graces. The film also stars
John Saxon-Early life:Saxon, an Italian American, was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Anna and Antonio Orrico, a dock worker. He attended New Utrecht High School and studied acting with famous acting coach Stella Adler and broke into films in the mid-1950s, playing teenage roles...
and
Martin Balsam- Early life :Balsam was born in The Bronx to Jewish parents Lillian and Albert Balsam, who was a manufacturer of ladies sportswear. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he participated in the drama club...
as the criminals Mitchell pursues and
Linda EvansLinda Evans is an American actress known primarily for her roles on television. She rose to fame as Barbara Stanwyck's daughter, Audra Barkley, on the 1960s Western, The Big Valley...
and
Merlin OlsenMerlin Jay Olsen is a former American football player in the National Football League and an actor. He played his entire 15-year career with the Los Angeles Rams and was elected to the Pro Bowl in 14 of those seasons, a current record shared with Bruce Matthews...
in supporting roles as a prostitute and henchman, respectively.
Mitchell was re-released by
Lorimar ProductionsLorimar Productions, later known as Lorimar Television, was an American television production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1968-1993...
in the
1980sThe 1980s was the decade that ran from January 1, 1980, to December 31, 1989.The time period saw social, economic and general change as wealth and production migrated to newly industrializing economies...
.
Plot
A
trade unionA trade union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas, such as working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labor contracts with employers...
lawyerA lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver...
named Walter Deaney (
John Saxon* John Saxon , motion picture actor, specializing in action films* John Saxon , known for developing a new system of mathematics education...
) kills a burglar in his house. Only an unorthodox plain-clothes detective named Mitchell (
Joe Don BakerJoe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, James Bond villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, and CIA agent Jack Wade in the James Bond films GoldenEye and...
) believes that Deaney is guilty of something more than self-defense, but
ChiefA Chief of Police, also known as Police Chief or sometimes shortened to just Chief is the title typically given to the top official in the chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. Alternate titles for this position include Police Commissioner, Police Superintendent,...
Albert Pallin (
Robert PhillipsRobert Phillips is an American classical guitarist.-Early life:The son of two optometrists, Dr. Robert Michael Phillips and Dr. Irma Phillips née Pedrogo who resided, although only briefly, in Valley Stream, New York...
) tells him that Deaney is wanted for "every
federal lawFederal law is the body of law created by the federal government of a country. A federal government is formed when a group of political units, such as states or provinces join together in a federation, surrendering their individual sovereignty and many powers to the central government while...
violation in the book" and is therefore "FBI property."
To keep Mitchell away from Deaney, the Chief orders him to
stake outStakeout is a 1987 movie directed by John Badham and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez, Madeleine Stowe, Aidan Quinn, and Forest Whitaker. Although the story is set in Seattle, Washington, the movie was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia....
the home of James Arthur Cummings (
Martin Balsam- Early life :Balsam was born in The Bronx to Jewish parents Lillian and Albert Balsam, who was a manufacturer of ladies sportswear. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he participated in the drama club...
), a wealthy man with ties to the
mobThe Mafia is a Sicilian criminal society which is believed to have emerged in late 19th century Sicily, and the first such society to be referred to as a mafia . It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct...
whose "big scene" is the import and export of stolen merchandise. Mitchell initially is unconcerned with Cummings and focuses primarily on Deaney. But he gets drawn in after Cummings discovers that Salvatore Mistretta (
Morgan PaullMorgan Paull is an American actor probably most notable for playing Holden in the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner. He made his acting debut in the 1970 film Patton playing Captain Richard N...
), cousin of his
mafiosoMafioso may refer to:* Mafioso , a 1962 Italian crime comedy film* Mafioso , a member of an Italian mafia clan.* Mafioso rap, a hip hop sub-genre...
benefactor Tony Gallano (
Harold J. StoneHarold J. Stone was an American film and television character actor.Born Harold Hochstein to a Jewish acting family, he began his career on Broadway in 1939 and appeared in five plays in the next six years, including One Touch of Venus and Stalag 17, following which he made his motion picture...
), is bringing in a shipment of stolen
heroinHeroin, or diacetylmorphine , also known as diamorphine , is a semi-synthetic opioid drug synthesized from morphine, a derivative of the opium poppy. It is the 3,6-diacetyl ester of morphine...
from
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
without Cummings' consent.
After unsuccessfully trying to buy Mitchell off with an offer of an illicit
real estateReal estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings, specifically property that is fixed in location.
"Real estate" The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin...
deal and a prostitute named Greta (
Linda EvansLinda Evans is an American actress known primarily for her roles on television. She rose to fame as Barbara Stanwyck's daughter, Audra Barkley, on the 1960s Western, The Big Valley...
), Deaney decides to work with Cummings to eliminate the annoying cop. Deaney is killed shortly thereafter during an attempt on Mitchell's life.
Cummings refuses to let Mistretta use his port facilities to bring the shipment in, earning him the ire of Gallano who begins sending
thugA thug in Modern English means a violent and/or anti-social person, including:-People:*Thug, a person, often a criminal, who treats others violently and roughly, especially for hire. Often a member of a gang, as an enforcer in organized crime...
s to harass him. Cummings decides that the only ally he still has -- aside from his faithful butler and bodyguard, Benton (
Merlin OlsenMerlin Jay Olsen is a former American football player in the National Football League and an actor. He played his entire 15-year career with the Los Angeles Rams and was elected to the Pro Bowl in 14 of those seasons, a current record shared with Bruce Matthews...
) -- is Mitchell, because he's no good to the police dead.
Cummings offers a deal. If he is allowed to go free, Mitchell will be allowed to pose as a
chauffeurA chauffeur is an individual who operates any self-propelled vehicle for a profession. While the term may refer to anybody who drives for a living, it usually implies a driver of an elegant passenger vehicle such as a horse-drawn carriage, luxury sedan, motor coach, or especially a limousine;...
and pick up the drug shipment, putting him in a position to both confiscate the drugs and arrest Mistretta. However, Cummings double-crosses Mitchell by alerting Mistretta to his real identity. He's also double-crossed Mistretta by replacing the heroin with
chalkChalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. It forms under relatively deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. It is common to find flint and chert...
. Mistretta decides to kill Mitchell and dump the body on Cummings' boat.
Mistretta is killed in the subsequent gun battle, freeing Mitchell to go after Cummings at sea. Mitchell is dropped onto the boat by helicopter and kills Benton with a gaff hook. Cummings is killed after one final attempted double-cross fails, bringing the story to a close.
Alternate version
In 1980, a heavily edited version of the 1975 film was released for broadcast television, in which most of the violence and all of the nudity and profanity were removed. Several scenes in the film were shot twice for this purpose.
- Greta writes on the windshield
The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, automobile, bus, motorcycle, or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and...
of Mitchell's car with lipstick. In the theatrical release the word written on the windshield is "BASTARD" while in the TV version the word is "JERK."
- The sequence during the dinner scene with the phony argument between Cummings and Benton was also shot twice to substitute "goddamn awful butler" with "lousy butler".
Critical reception
Mitchell was generally panned by critics upon its release. In the
New York Times,
Vincent CanbyVincent Canby was an American film critic.Canby was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Katharine Anne and Lloyd Canby. He became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there...
wrote:
"Mitchell, starring Joe Don BakerJoe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, James Bond villain Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, and CIA agent Jack Wade in the James Bond films GoldenEye and...
as a hard-nosed Los Angeles detective named Mitchell, has a lot of over-explicit violence, some gratuitous sex stuff and some rough language, yet it looks like a movie that couldn't wait to get to prime-time television. Perhaps it's a pilot film for a TV series, or maybe it's just a movie that's bad in a style we associate with some of the more mindless small-screen entertainments.
Mitchell spends what seems to be the greater part of the film climbing in and out of automobiles, driving automobiles, chasing other automobiles, parking automobiles, and leaning against the body of automobiles that are temporarily at rest. Once he smashes a hoodlum's hand in the door of an automobile.
The climax, for a giddy change of pace, features a police helicopter in pursuit of a high-speed cabin cruiser. Automobiles sink when driven onto water."
Said the
Time OutTime Out is a publishing company based in London, England. The company's best known product is the Time Out weekly listings magazine.The Time Out Group Limited conducts most of its business from London, New York and Paris.-Publications:...
film guide:
"Baker's the big lumpy cop who won't take no and another assignment for an answer when he's told to lay off the gun-happy lawyer (Saxon) he suspects of cold-blooded murder, and to concentrate on the businessman with the coke connection (Balsam). He realises that in such a sparsely-populated cheapie they just have to be in collusion, as he punches and shoots his way to the final credits accompanied by vocal encouragement from one of those country singers with terminal cancer. Balsam and Saxon contribute no more than their required quota of urbane sneers before being bulldozed into oblivion by the golem hero of this irredeemably routine potboiler."
The
Internet Movie DatabaseThe Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, video games, and most recently, fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media...
currently gives
Mitchell a user ranking of 2.8 out of 10, while the MST3K version holds a more favorable ranking of 8.7 out of 10.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode
On October 23, 1993, the edited-for-television release of
Mitchell was featured as an episode of
Mystery Science Theater 3000Mystery Science Theater 3000, often abbreviated MST3K, is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc...
. The film was trimmed by several minutes to match MST3K's format, with the result that John Saxon's character, killed by Mitchell in a deleted scene, simply disappears from the action, with only a barely audible radio announcement of Deaney's (Saxon) death as Mitchell drives up to Cummings' house in a future scene, leaving the circumstances of his death a mystery.
JoelJoel Robinson is a fictional character featured in the American science fiction comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 . He was portrayed by Joel Hodgson, the creator of the series.- Overview :...
and the Bots even remark on this lapse: "Wasn't John Saxon in this movie?" Particularly mocked were Mitchell's alcoholism, slovenliness, and uncouth behavior.
According to
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide on page 97, actor Joe Don Baker was very angry at the
MST3K treatment of
Mitchell, and threatened physical violence on any of the cast or crew should he ever meet them in person. This did not stop them from later featuring (and happily mocking) another of Joe Don's films,
Final Justice, and hurling even more vicious insults at Baker.
Kevin MurphyKevin Wagner Murphy is an American actor best known as the voice and puppeteer of Tom Servo on the Peabody Award-winning comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000.- Early career :...
, who played MST3K's robot commentator
Tom ServoTom Servo is a fictional character from the American science fiction comedy television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 . Tom is one of two wise-cracking, robotic main characters of the show, built by Joel Robinson to act as a companion and help stave off space madness as Joel was forced to watch...
, and was one of the show's head writers, later said Baker likely meant it in a joking manner.
The episode is also notable as being MST3K creator-star Joel Hodgson's last episode (save for a cameo in Episode 1001:
SoultakerSoultaker could mean:* Soultaker , a low-budget 1990s fantasy/horror movie that was shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000.* The SoulTaker, an anime series.* The original ring name of professional wrestler Charles Wright....
) and the first to feature his replacement, Mike Nelson, who would appear for the remainder of the show's run.
Music
The film's theme song, "Mitchell," was performed by
country musicCountry music is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains...
singer
Hoyt AxtonHoyt Wayne Axton was an American country music singer-songwriter, and a film and television actor. He became prominent in the early 1960s, establishing himself on the West Coast as a folk singer with an earthy style and powerful voice. As he matured, some of his songwriting efforts became well...
.
DVD releases
- The film has been released as a 'bargain bin' disc.
- The MST3K version of the film was released by Rhino Home Video
Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company, owned by Warner Music Group.-Company history:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of Pop Music, Rock & Roll, and R&B successes from...
with the theatrical trailer as an extra.
External links