Mitchell (film)
Encyclopedia
Mitchell is a 1975 film
starring Joe Don Baker
as an abrasive, alcoholic police detective, released by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation in the USA on September 10, 1975.
Very much an anti-hero
, Mitchell often ignores the orders of his superiors and demonstrates disdain for by-the-book development work as well as normal social graces. The film also stars John Saxon
and Martin Balsam
as the banking criminals Mitchell pursues and Linda Evans
and Merlin Olsen
in supporting roles as a prostitute and henchman, respectively. Mitchell was re-released by Lorimar Productions
in the 1980s
.
lawyer
named Walter Deaney (John Saxon
) kills a burglar in his house. Only an unorthodox plain-clothes detective named Mitchell (Joe Don Baker
) believes that Deaney is guilty of something more than self-defense, but Chief
Albert Pallin (Robert Phillips
) tells him that Deaney is wanted for "every federal law
violation in the book" and is therefore "FBI property."
To keep Mitchell away from Deaney, the Chief orders him to stake out
the home of James Arthur Cummings (Martin Balsam
), a wealthy man with ties to the mob
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 Paull
), cousin of his mafioso
benefactor Tony Gallano (Harold J. Stone
), is bringing in a shipment of stolen heroin from Mexico
without Cummings' consent.
After unsuccessfully trying to buy Mitchell off with an offer of an illicit real estate
deal and a prostitute named Greta (Linda Evans
), 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 thugs to harass him. Cummings decides that the only ally he still has -- aside from his faithful butler and bodyguard, Benton (Merlin Olsen
) -- 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 chauffeur
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 chalk
. 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, who is attempting to flee the country by 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.
wrote:
Said the Time Out film guide:
The Internet Movie Database
currently gives Mitchell a user ranking of 2.3 out of 10 while the MST3K version holds a much more favorable ranking of 9.0 out of 10.
. 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 vanishes from the action, with the reason of his disappearance remaining all but a complete mystery. Joel
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. During the end credits, Servo and Crow mock the theme song by improvising lyrics about food and Mitchell's weight, briefly referencing Shaft
.
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 Murphy
, who played MST3K's robot commentator Tom Servo
as well as serving as 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: Soultaker
) and the first to feature his replacement, Mike Nelson, who would appear for the remainder of the show's run.
singer Hoyt Axton
.
1975 in film
The year 1975 in film involved some significant events, with Steven Spielberg's thriller Jaws topping the box office.-Events:*March 26 - The film version of The Who's Tommy premieres in London....
starring Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute force with a badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James...
as an abrasive, alcoholic police detective, released by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation in the USA on September 10, 1975.
Very much an anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
, Mitchell often ignores the orders of his superiors and demonstrates disdain for by-the-book development work as well as normal social graces. The film also stars John Saxon
John Saxon (actor)
John Saxon is an American actor who has worked on over 200 projects during the span of sixty years. Saxon is most known for his work in horror films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Black Christmas, both of which feature Saxon as a policeman in search of the killer...
and Martin Balsam
Martin Balsam
Martin Henry Balsam was an American actor. He is known for his Oscar-winning role as "Arnold Burns" in A Thousand Clowns and his role as "Detective Milton Arbogast" in Psycho.- Early life :...
as the banking criminals Mitchell pursues and Linda Evans
Linda Evans
Linda Evans is an American actress. She is known primarily for her roles on television, and rose to fame playing Audra Barkley in the 1960s Western TV series, The Big Valley...
and Merlin Olsen
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Jay Olsen was an American football player in the National Football League, NFL commentator, and 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 Productions
Lorimar Productions
Lorimar, later known as Lorimar Television and Lorimar Distribution, was an American television production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1969 until 1993...
in the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
.
Plot
A trade unionTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
named Walter Deaney (John Saxon
John Saxon (actor)
John Saxon is an American actor who has worked on over 200 projects during the span of sixty years. Saxon is most known for his work in horror films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Black Christmas, both of which feature Saxon as a policeman in search of the killer...
) kills a burglar in his house. Only an unorthodox plain-clothes detective named Mitchell (Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute force with a badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James...
) believes that Deaney is guilty of something more than self-defense, but Chief
Chief of police
A Chief of Police 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 Commissioner, Superintendent, and Chief constable...
Albert Pallin (Robert Phillips
Robert Phillips
Robert 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 law
Federal law
Federal 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 out
Stakeout
Stakeout is a 1987 film directed by John Badham and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez, Madeleine Stowe, Aidan Quinn, and Forest Whitaker...
the home of James Arthur Cummings (Martin Balsam
Martin Balsam
Martin Henry Balsam was an American actor. He is known for his Oscar-winning role as "Arnold Burns" in A Thousand Clowns and his role as "Detective Milton Arbogast" in Psycho.- Early life :...
), a wealthy man with ties to the mob
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
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 Paull
Morgan Paull
Morgan 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. Jenson...
), cousin of his mafioso
Mafioso
Mafioso 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. Stone
Harold J. Stone
Harold 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 heroin from Mexico
Mexico
The 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 estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
deal and a prostitute named Greta (Linda Evans
Linda Evans
Linda Evans is an American actress. She is known primarily for her roles on television, and rose to fame playing Audra Barkley in the 1960s Western TV series, 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 thugs to harass him. Cummings decides that the only ally he still has -- aside from his faithful butler and bodyguard, Benton (Merlin Olsen
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Jay Olsen was an American football player in the National Football League, NFL commentator, and 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 chauffeur
Chauffeur
A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.Originally such drivers were always personal servants of the vehicle owner, but now in many cases specialist chauffeur service companies, or individual drivers provide...
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 chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
. 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, who is attempting to flee the country by 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 windshieldWindshieldThe windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike 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 are glued...
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".
- The scene with Mitchell arguing with Greta's son was edited with Mitchell saying "Buzz off, kid!!!" in the TV version instead of "Piss off, kid!!!" in the theatrical release.
Critical reception
Mitchell was generally panned by critics upon its release. In the New York Times, Vincent CanbyVincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
wrote:
"Mitchell, starring Joe Don BakerJoe Don BakerJoe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute force with a badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James...
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 Out 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 Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
currently gives Mitchell a user ranking of 2.3 out of 10 while the MST3K version holds a much more favorable ranking of 9.0 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
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
. 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 vanishes from the action, with the reason of his disappearance remaining all but a complete mystery. Joel
Joel Robinson
Joel Robinson is a fictional character featured in the American science fiction comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000...
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. During the end credits, Servo and Crow mock the theme song by improvising lyrics about food and Mitchell's weight, briefly referencing Shaft
Shaft (1971 film)
Shaft is a 1971 American blaxploitation film directed by Gordon Parks, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. An action film with elements of film noir, Shaft tells the story of a black private detective, John Shaft, who travels through Harlem and to the Italian mob neighborhoods in order to find the...
.
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 Murphy
Kevin Murphy (actor)
Kevin Wagner Murphy is an American actor and writer 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 Servo
Tom Servo
Tom 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...
as well as serving as 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: Soultaker
Soultaker
Soultaker 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
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
singer Hoyt Axton
Hoyt Axton
Hoyt 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 MST3K version of the film was released by Rhino Home VideoRhino EntertainmentRhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
in November 2001 with the theatrical trailer as an extra. As of January 2010, the DVD is now out-of-print on Rhino's official website, and as of July 2010, the DVD is now out-of-print on Mst3k's official website.
External links
- A list of cultural references in the Mystery Science Theater cut.