A Mancha do Passado

When Jimmy Graham (Jan Michael Viencent) was six years old he witnessed the aftermath of his father, Harry Graham (Robert Mitchum), murdering his mother. He was forced to testify against his dad, and after his conviction he was passed around between foster homes and boys' schools. Thirteen years later, and Jimmy Graham is a kid with a mighty case of PTSD, a chip on his shoulder, and a case of smoldering anger against his dad.

When Jimmy makes one of his infrequent trips to the prison, he discovers that dad was paroled months ago and didn't bother to get in touch with him and tell him he is out. He looks dad up and sees dad is getting on with his life - living in a trailer park, working as a mechanic, he even has a steady girl. Not that Harry seems to know what to do with their relationship. He alternately acts friendly towards his son and then out of the blue rejects him. At least, though, we have some of that Mitchum laconic coolness on display where I get some idea of where he is coming from.

Jimmy, however, has as close to a resting b**ch face that a man can have, and wanders around mute and behaving largely in a passive aggressive fashion. Sometimes he acts like he wants to get close to dad, other times he is complaining to the parole board about the fact that Harry is even out, another time he scratches a BEWARE OF HARRY GRAHAM message on the men's room wall. Towards the end, however, Jimmy does a deed so foul that no amount of childhood trauma can excuse it. At that point I just wanted Mitchum to show up and go all Cape Fear on this unlikable person.

The editing is not great either. Jimmy seems to have no life at all when he decides to decamp and go meddle in dad's life. Yet at the end of the film he shows up at some house of ill repute where people see him and say "Quitters are not welcome!". Jimmy calls his dad and tells him where he is, and dad says emphatically "I told you never to go back to that house!" and feels so strongly about it he has to go drive over and get him. What is this house? Until these scenes it has not been shown and I have no idea what it is doing in this film.

The 3 stars are for Mitchum, who is a presence even in a bad film with a bad script and bad editing.

I'm a big fan of Robert Mitchum and also of Jan-Michael Vincent, but I was disappointed with this father/son drama. The film has an interesting set-up, with Vincent reaching out to his recently paroled father, who had been put away for killing his wife, Vincent's mother, many years before. What doesn't work as well is that Vincent is such an unpleasant character and in terms of narrative seems like he should be the character the audience needs to want to follow and identify with. Mitchum is excellent as the father who is happy to help his son and to reconcile, but who avoids pushing himself on his son given his past actions. Vincent is an underrated actor, but this character is so damaged and hurtful that it makes the film an unpleasant experience. And it's not that I can't appreciate or enjoy challenging familial dramas, but they at least need to interesting characters or solid narrative, both of which this film lacked. Overall, this film was only made watchable thanks to a nuanced performance by Mitchum. Brenda Vaccaro, Sally Kirkland, and Josh Mostel appear in supporting roles and an uncredited Audrey Landers appears as a teenage Arby's customer.

Underrated, little-seen melodrama got shelved in the early 1970s after a limited run. Too bad, it gives Robert Mitchum a fantastic role as parolee who served time for killing his wife. The movie follows his release and eventual reconnection with his estranged teenage son, who as a child witnessed his mother's death. Jan-Michael Vincent is very good as the kid with the tangled feelings (curious about his father, but also angry and resentful); Brenda Vaccaro is terrific as a new woman in Mitchum's life (it's possibly Vaccaro's finest hour). The wife's death, seen in flashback, is tastefully handled by director Herbert B. Leonard, who gets some wrenching scenes out of his cast. A low-keyed, affecting gem about conflicted human emotions. ***1/2 from ****

If someone says they have had the perfect life they are either lying or are a single child being raised by a single parent, and even then maybe they just have not lived long enough. There are three fine perfomances on display by a young Jan-Michael Vincent, Brenda Vaccaro and of course Robert Mitchum.

This is a story only a few families may be able relate to in relation to a murder of one parent by another parent, and in this case it is about Robert Mitchum while in a drunken stupor murdering his own wife as his young son around seven (7) years of age is left parentless after his father is imprisoned. Eventually Mitchu is released from prison and he has a new girlfriend (Vaccaro) to which they are trying to re-build their lives when unexpectedly Mitchum's now teenage son (Jan-Michael Vincent) suddenly appears at their door.

Neither father, son, nor Brenda Vaccaro who is Mitchum's live-in trailer girlfriend know how to adapt to being a family since Mitchum has spent the last decade or so in prison while his young son grew up in foster homes. It is not an easy watch as stuff happens in real life that is unpleasant to have to hear, let alone watch. But families can overcome great difficulties if they can learn to live with their pasts and become better people. This is the story of father Harry K. Graham (Robert Mitchum), estranged son Jimmy Graham (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Harry's live in girlfriend Jenny Benson (Brenda Vaccaro) who have to try and find a way to not only survive but to live as a family.

A 6/10 rating

It was made in seventies, early seventies, and that explains the way it was directed, played and written. Two decades later, it would have been different. Anyway, that did not interfere with the pleasure I had to spend time watching it. Robert Mitchum gives the portrait of an ambivalent character, a bit disturbing, in the father character, and not the ordinary father, not the good family man whom you could expect in a normal family. He killed his wife and years later his grown up son goes to find his father and get some explanation, talk to him...That's precisely at this point that the story comes interesting, gripping. An underrated film, I guess.