Maybe somebody can prove me wrong, but I doubt there has ever been a good movie where running moonshine is the chief mechanism driving the plot.  The first such picture off the top of my head is White Lightnin’ Road, and what an abomination that was.  It is the kind of subject matter that consistently aims for a certain demographic, a group which laps it up when they should be insulted.

What I am really confused by is why Robert Mitchum so desperately wanted to bring this story to the screen.  Not only does he star, but he is also a producer and he even sings the theme song.  He has a credit for “story”, and I wonder exactly what that entailed, as he isn’t one of the screenwriters. My guess is he sat in a studio boss’s office and said he had an idea for picture about moonshine runners.

He’s also cast his real-life son, James, as his brother.  I don’t recall seeing the younger Mitchum in anything before.  IMDB shows he had a rather long career in film and TV.  All I know is his acting here is one of the worst performances I have seen in either medium.  The scenes where he plays against his dad are especially jarring, given the disparity in acting ability.  Whereas Robert’s laconic gaze always has a kind of surly intelligence to them, Jim has a completely blank expression that suggests nobody is home.  I may actually owe Sheri Moon Zombie an apology for things I said about her in The Munsters.

The plot concerns the elder Mitchum as a shine runner wanted by federal agents, led by Gene Barry.  Mobsters who are trying to organize all of the area’s bootlegging activities under them are also after the uncooperative Mitchum, who is determined to remain a free agent.

There are also a couple of romantic subplots, both of which involve the Mitchum senior and neither of which are interesting.  One involves Sandra Knight as an oversexed teen who seems to spontaneously ovulate in his presence.  The other is Kelly Smith, who I was previously aware of only in her capacity as a singer.  Having seen her acting here, I still only know her as a singer.  Mitchum must have been a huge fan of her music, as she delivers a couple of minutes of a musical performance straight to the camera.  There’s also an unusual scene where she listens as he delivers a long monologue waxing about bootleggers as if they are the last true American heroes.  I wasn’t sure what to read into her dead-eyed reaction shots.

Almost every aspect of this film is clunky.  Chief among these is the script, which is full of awkward dialog.  We also hear some strange aphorisms I doubt were ever spoken outside this film.  Things like, “that’s like fighting a tornado with a switch from a peach tree.”

Even the car used by our lead in his bootlegging operation is bizarre, as if outfitted by some backwoods version of Q from the James Bond series.  It has an oil slick mechanism on the back.  The illegal liquor is stored in a huge tank in the trunk, with a spigot to the outside of the vehicle through a hole in the trunk.  One of Mitchum’s greatest concerns is possibly getting pulled over after delivering the goods, and going to prison because of any quantity still in the receptacle.  That seemed odd to me, as I would think just having that container in the vehicle would be incriminating enough, regardless of whether it currently had any shine in it.  Also, I bet the product has an odor that isn’t going to go away any time soon.

As if it matters, there are also some odd soundtrack choices.  Especially daft is that used in the car chase scenes.  Such music could only be appropriate for a zany high-speed chase on foot or bicycles through an old European city.

I’m not sure if Thunder Road is considered to be canonically film noir by most.  I’m not sure even I would regard it as such.  Regardless of genre, it is a rather stupid film. 

Dir: Arthur Ripley

Starring Robert Mitchum, Gene Barry, Jacques Aubuchon

Watched on Sandpiper blu-ray