Robert Mitchum is the master of laconic cool

Robert Mitchum

My favorite classic movie stars are the ones who seem the most modern.

James Cagney is my favorite. I'm also a big Kirk Douglas fan. And lately I've come to appreciate the late Robert Mitchum more and more.

He was a huge star for several decades but he was always underrated and under-appreciated. Mitchum was iconic for his work in film noir but he had hits in almost every other genre.

What Mitchum understood is that his very look and presence spoke volumes.

He was laconic but not lazy. He knew that he had a kind of smoldering intensity that would come across without him needing to do all that much.

His power as an actor is arguably best on display in three seminal films from three very distinct periods in his career.

The first is 1947's Out of the Past, a breakthrough role for Mitchum which established his most enduring persona -- that of the world-weary tough guy with a mysterious past. The film is widely hailed as one of the hallmarks of the film noir genre and it has an edge that makes it feel more contemporary than many other movies from its era.

It's a romantic role for Mitchum, who with his distinct features and baritone voice got to play opposite the most beautiful female stars of his day. He plays a would-be gumshoe tasked with tracking down a woman who's run out on a particularly nasty thug (played by a dynamic Kirk Douglas in an early role). He ends up falling for the woman (played by Jane Greer), but she isn't who she seems.

In 1955, at the peak of his career, Mitchum took on his greatest role -- a total change of pace -- in the brilliant thriller The Night of the Hunter. Cast against type as a psychopathic preacher, Mitchum showed a range a lot of critics didn't know he had and he is incredibly scary as a killer disturbed by his own lustful thoughts. The film flopped when it first came out but now it holds up as one of the greatest movies of the decade.

The last film I'll mention is a 1970s crime film -- The Friends of Eddie Coyle. In this film Mitchum is a rugged, burnt out veteran guns dealer -- who runs afoul of the wrong people during the tail end of his career. Mitchum has a such a compelling way of delivering hard boiled dialogue. It comes out of Mitchum so naturally that he seems like just a real-life guy, not a movie star.

Mitchum never won an Oscar and never really had one signature role that defined his career. He just worked steadily and reliably from the 1940s until he died in 1997. Now he's become a favorite of modern filmmakers who appreciate his minimalist style and his masculine grace.

They don't make movie stars like him anymore.