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DVD REVIEW ARCHIVE
THUNDER ROAD (1958)
DVD (region 4)
d. Arthur Ripley; pr. Robert Mitchum, Arthur Ripley; ph. David Ettenson, Alan Stensvold; ed. Harry Marker; m. Jack Marshall. songs. Robert Mitchum; scr. James Atlee Phillips, Walter Wise; stry. Robert Mitchum; cast. Robert Mitchum, Gene Barry, Jacques Aubuchon, Keely Smith, Trevor Bardette, Sandra Knight, James Mitchum (92 mins)

ORIGINAL MOVIE POSTER

MOVIE POSTER

The Private Passion of Robert Mitchum Births the Quintessential "Moonshine Movie"

Thunder Road has a reputation as one of the great American drive-in movies, if not the greatest, having played that circuit, particularly in the South, for many years. It is also perhaps star Robert Mitchum’s most personal movie and he was involved in its production on almost every level.

MITCHUM SINGS!
THE BALLAD OF THUNDER ROAD!

The story was his conception, he produced the movie, personally supervised the casting procedure and at one stage sought a then still rebellious Elvis Presley for the lead role (Presley’s agents would have none of this apparently). Mitchum selected the crew and director and wrote many of the songs featured in the movie. Although he did not direct it himself, he was very much involved in determining the visual look of the movie. His dedication to this film was arguably obsessive. There is thus a temptation to consider this the quintessential Mitchum movie and to some extent it is, a tough, terse and quickly made film that anticipates the bleakly existential road movies that would emerge over a decade later in such classics as Vanishing Point and Two Lane Blacktop especially. Whatever its dramatic shortcomings (or virtues), it remains a most noteworthy curio in American film, important perhaps less for its artistic achievements than for the passion it provoked in one of America’s greatest actor-icons.

Synopsis (contains spoilers)

Thunder Road is also perhaps the definitive moonshine movie. In it, Robert Mitchum plays a “transporter”, the man who has the responsibility of driving a car with specially modified tanks containing illegal alcohol from the still to the purchasers.

These drives occur on back roads regularly patrolled by policemen and increasingly, Treasury Department agents, intent on busting the moonshine racket. The moonshine community is a happily independent one, free and family-oriented although on the verge of poverty, but soon organized crime worms its way into their tight-knit society. They hold a meeting and reject the offer to join this big league criminality. However, the crime boss (Jacques Aubuchon) is intent on driving out these stragglers and when he cannot convert the fiercely independent Mitchum to his cause sends his hoodlums out to get him. Now these roads are increasingly dangerous. A Treasury cop (Gene Barry) is also after Mitchum, although he wants his help to catch the crime boss more so than to break the small-time operators. To do so, he seeks the help of Mitchum’s brother (played by son Jim Mitchum) who idolizes his older brother and wants also to be a transporter. Soon, the proverbial noose is tightening around them all and the road becomes their test of survival.

Rugged American Individualism's Last Hurrah

The film is about the last vestiges of the spirit of rugged individualism and freedom in poverty-stricken America and frequently states that one man should have the freedom to do what he wants on his own land, even if this bends the law.

The moonshiners are thus decent outlaws in a sense whose freedom is threatened by the twin evils of American progress – law and organized crime, the individual trapped between them. Mitchum refuses to bend to either will, the road being his refuge, the site where he proves his freedom and superiority over all obstacles. Mitchum thus becomes the epitome of defiance and this defiance is almost a kind of constitutional anarchy as it marks the point where constitutional freedoms and modern legality arguably diverge in respect of the freedom to act as one feels on one’s own property. In the film’s political scheme of things thus, the moonshiners are caught up in a kind of ethical no-man’s land, not that they think of it in such terms. With Mitchum thus representing freedom, the film mythologizes the moonshiner in the same way that many films did the western outlaws at the closing of the frontier. In the process the film is in effect one of the first to fully embrace the cult of the doomed anti-hero as a figure of mythic and even existential resonance.

In those ways and in others, the film is indeed ahead of its time. Although concerned with the possibility of modern myth, it is aware of the bleak fate that may await these defiant, untamed men.

They too are perhaps the last of their kind and it is in this respect that the relationship between Mitchum and his brother is so important. The younger idealizes the older, but Mitchum is intent that his younger brother not become as he is, for fear of his life perhaps but also maybe for doubts about the younger man being able to rise to the mythic demands of defiance. Does the older Mitchum thus know that what he represents is doomed? Even so, the film clearly revels in the thrill that he experiences on the road, what film historians have since considered Mitchum’s fascination with the idea of ceaseless (albeit almost directionless) motion. The act of driving a car thus becomes the statement of a man, his pride and defiance of restrictive codes – there is both freedom and despair on these roads – although it serves only to stress an undercurrent of loneliness and emotional desperation that runs through the film. These people are searching for something ill-defined and elusive in the ideal of American freedom and it is perhaps modernity that would seek to stifle them. Slowly, the sense of time running out and of escape denied pervades this movie.

UK DVD COVER

The visual transfer on this DVD is serviceable enough although is presented in fullscreen only.

EXTRACT

It preserves the somber, often stark black and white design but is somewhat grainy and indistinct, lacking full clarity. Nevertheless the shadowy look has a raw immediacy true to the low budget and rapid shooting approach. It is often starkly lit, with a sense of days passing but the inherent dilemma of the road continuing regardless. Rear projection effects reveal the film’s age but add to the stylization of the road scenes and chase sequences and the centrality of the automobile in this poverty-stricken lifestyle is well maintained (leading to fatal plot twists). The car chases are effective scenes and the style stresses that this is where Mitchum finds his true self-definition and even sense of purpose – in motion on the road (the central metaphor of the emerging Beat literary movement). Perhaps in motion all obstacles are transcended, with the impositions of life turning such freedom in a succession of stop-start events. The scene of the destruction of a still carries with it the sense of almost nostalgic loss, the death of a freer and defiant America.

The sound transfer on this DVD is mono only, although that preserves the design and intent of the original movie and should not be faulted for it.

As such, it has some background presence although never to distracting levels. The film is also somewhat remarkable in its use of music, from the Mitchum-penned songs underlying the rock ’n roll quality of the movie to the down-South joviality of the score during the car chase sequences. Voices are clear although there is often little in the way of background atmosphere. Nevertheless, there is a sense of detail to the process of country moonshine operations. Most important perhaps is the stress on cars, with engine noise a kind of metaphor for American perseverance. Hence, engines on and off become a dominant motif in the pacing of the film and its depiction of the invigoration Mitchum finds in driving and transporting. At times, the sounds of a subdued nature inform the background for a sense of backwoods locale authenticity – nicely contrasted to the busyness of urban existence. It is a very sparse sound mix by design and intent and well preserved overall in this transfer.

The only special feature is an original trailer. The back cover of the DVD mentions a collectible booklet inside but there was no such booklet in the DVD purchased for review, just a standard double-sided slip page with cover photo on one side and scene selection index on the other.