History Film / Mitchell

''Mitchell'' is a 1975 film starring Joe Don Baker as an abrasive, unpopular, alcoholic police detective. The film opens with the murder of an unarmed home invader by Walter Deaney (played by John Saxon). Though Deaney claims self-defense, Mitchell is doubtful but can't properly pursue the charge due to the FBI wanting Deaney for far worse. The police chief tries to keep Mitchell busy by getting him to stake out a man named Cummings who's involved in trafficking stolen merchandise and later drugs. Deaney also sends Mitchell a hooker named Greta to try and butter him up. After a disturbing sex scene involving beer and baby oil, he arrests her for crack. Eventually Deaney tries to kill Mitchell, but dies in the attempt. Cummings is meanwhile trying to stop some Italian mobsters from bringing a shipment of heroin through his port. After a rather long scene of Mitchell yelling at a child, Cummings manipulates Mitchell into believing he'll help him catch the mobsters but in reality Cummings just plans to steal the real heroin and set up Mitchell. Mitchell gets wise and kills the Italian gangsters, then chases Cummings's boat. After a brief fight on the boat, he kills Cummings's lousy butler and finally Cummings himself. He returns home to find Greta waiting for him and he goes ahead and arrests her again for good measure (as she's been revealed to be high on pot, the viewer suddenly understands why she was willing to sleep with Mitchell).

* JugglingLoadedGuns: Deaney gives a profoundly stupid answer ("Some of 'em. I can never be sure which") when the police ask him whether his guns were kept loaded. Had he responded that the burglar could have loaded it on his own and he wasn't willing to risk finding out for himself if that was the case, it may have deflected a lot of Mitchell's suspicion.[[note]]Though what really aroused Mitchell's suspicious was that the robber was 5'0" and way too short to even reach the guns.[[/note]]

** Police chief Pallin is arguably worse. The dialogue suggests he gave Mitchell the stakeout assignment hoping Cummings would kill him. He also chews out Mitchell for simply doing his job (finding the holes in Deany's story) without explaining why Mitchell should drop it (at first).

* JugglingLoadedGuns: Deaney gives a profoundly stupid answer ("Some of 'em. I can never be sure which") when the police ask him whether his guns were kept loaded. Had he responded that the burglar could have loaded it on his own and he wasn't willing to risk finding out for himself if that was the case, it may have deflected a lot of Mitchell's suspicion.

'''Mitchell:''' '''''BUZZ OFF, KID!!'''''

*** Columbo's actually a likeable, funny character, though, isn't a total slob, and doesn't screw things up for his department.

** To be fair, Mitchell ''only'' brings her in when he finds out she's a "Christmas gift". He doesn't care about drugs ''that'' much. The second time is purely PlayedForLaughs.

* DesignatedHero: Mitchell's arguably the least likeable character in the film. Even when he's actually enforcing the law instead of breaking it, it comes off more as him bullying than anything honorable. That he survives at all is because his immensely more competent enemies are correctly more concerned about each other than about him. [[VillainBall Mostly.]]

* HeyItsThatGuy:
** [[TheXFiles Deep Throat]] as a police desk sergeant.
** Merlin Olson (post-NFL career, pre-[[Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie Father Murphy]] and sports announcing career) as Cummings's [[TheDragon dragon]].
** [[{{Dynasty}} Krystle Carrington]] as [[HookerWithAHeartOfGold Mitchell's "love" interest]].
** Mistretta is the guy running the Voight-Kampff test at the beginning of ''Film/BladeRunner''.
** Mitchell is trying to arrest [[Film/{{Psycho}} Arbogast]] and [[EnterTheDragon Roper]].

Initially released by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. The reviews at the time lambasted the picture for its confusing plot, thoroughly unlikeable lead, and dedication to showing lots and lots of scenes with people in cars. It was later recut for television by Lorimar to remove all of the nudity, profanity, and violence, with some scenes obviously having been shot twice during production to remove swearing. This cut also lost some of the film's total run time, making an already confusing film even worse. It was the Lorimar cut that appeared on ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'' in 1993, now further recut for the length of the program and actually losing the resolution to the Deaney subplot in the process. The episode went on to be extremely popular largely for its jokes focusing on the unpleasantness of the Mitchell character. It also featured the departure of host Joel Hodgson, thus guaranteeing its visibility among other episodes of the show. Not surprisingly, it is this version of ''Mitchell'' that most people are familiar with.

* ReassignedToAntarctica: To pull him away from Deaney, Mitchell is put on a one-man stakeout of Cummings's house. Never mind that it takes many people to properly stake out a house; his boss is obviously just shuffling him out of the way.

'''Boy:''' Why not?[[hottip:*:meaning "Why don't you like her?"]]\\
'''Mitchell:''' Why not?[[hottip:*:meaning "Why shouldn't I dislike her?"]]\\

* {{Bowdlerise}}: See Jerkass below. Originally it was "Bastard", not "Jerk", written on the windshield. Likely a cut intended for TV.

* JugglingLoadedGuns: Deaney gives a profoundly stupid answer ("Some of 'em. I can never be sure which") when the police ask him whether his guns were kept loaded. Had he responded that the burglar could have loaded it on his own and he wasn't willing to risk finding out for himself if it was, it may have deflected a lot of Mitchell's suspicion.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Mitchell may be a dick, but he's the only one who figures out that Mistretta killing the robber at the start of the film was more than just a home robbery gone bad. No one else believes him, probably on account of him being a jackass.

''Mitchell'' is a 1975 film starring Joe Don Baker as an abrasive, unpopular, alcoholic police detective. The film opens with the murder of an unarmed home invader by Walter Deaney (played by John Saxon). Though Deaney claims self-defense, Mitchell is doubtful but can't properly pursue the charge due to the FBI wanting Deaney for far worse. The police chief tries to keep Mitchell busy by getting him to stake out a man named Cummings who's involved in trafficking stolen merchandise and later drugs. Deaney also sends Mitchell a hooker named Greta to try and butter him up. After a disturbing sex scene involving beer and baby oil, he arrests her for crack. Eventually Deaney tries to kill Mitchell, but dies in the attempt. Cummings is meanwhile trying to stop some Italian mobsters from bringing a shipment of heroin through his port. After a rather long scene of Mitchell yelling at a child, Cummings manipulates Mitchell into believing he'll help him catch the mobsters but in reality Cummings just plans to steal the real heroin and set up Mitchell. Mitchell gets wise and kills the Italian gangsters, then chases Cummings' boat. After a brief fight on the boat, he kills Cummings lousy butler and finally Cummings himself. He returns home to find Greta waiting for him and he goes ahead and arrests her again for good measure (as she's been revealed to be high on pot, the viewer suddenly understands why she was willing to sleep with Mitchell.)

Initially released by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. The reviews at the time lambasted the picture for its confusing plot, thoroughly unlikeable lead, and dedication to showing lots and lots of scenes with people in cars. It was later recut for television by Lorimar to remove all of the nudity, profanity, and violence, with some scenes obviously having been shot twice during production to remove swearing. This cut also lost some of the film's total run time, making an already confusing film even worse. It was the Lorimar cut that appeared on ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'' in 1993, now further recut for the length of the program and actually losing the resolution to the Deaney subplot in the process. The episode went on to be extremely popular largely for it's jokes focusing on the unpleasantness of the Mitchell character. It also featured the departure of host Joel Hodgeson, thus guaranteeing it's visibility among other episodes of the show. Not surprisingly, it is this version of ''Mitchell'' that most people are familiar with.

** Merlin Olson (post-NFL career, pre-[[Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie Father Murphy]] and sports announcing career) as Cummings' [[TheDragon dragon]].

** Mitchell is trying to arrest [[Film/{{Psycho}} Arbogast]] and [[EnterTheDragon Roper]]

** [[spoiler:although Mitchell turns down this offer and we are lead to believe turns Greta back into the police on further drug possession charges anyhow.]]
* IncrediblyObviousTail: Mitchell doesn't even ''try'' to be subtle with staking out Cummings.

* ReassignedToAntarctica: To pull him away from Deaney, Mitchell is put on a one-man stakeout of Cumming's house. Never mind that it takes many people to properly stake out a house; his boss is just obviously shuffling him out of the way.

* SpannerInTheWorks: Mitchell is a walking disaster for every characters plans, up to and including his own department's. The amazing thing is he rarely bothers to do anything proactive. He just hangs around and the bad guys do stupid things.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Mitchell may be a dick, but he's the only one who figures out that Mistretta killing the robber at the start of the film. No one else believes him, probably on account of him being a jackass.
* TheMafia/TheSyndicate

-->Greta walks up to Mitchell's stakeout car while he's inside with Cummings, and writes "Bastard"/"Jerk" on the windshield in lipstick.\\
* TheMafia, TheSyndicate

* IncrediblyObviousTail

''Mitchell'' is a 1975 film starring Joe Don Baker as an abrasive, alcoholic police detective. The film was released by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation in the United States on September 10, 1975. Very much an anti-hero, Mitchell often ignores the orders of his superiors in pursuit of his targets, and demonstrates disdain for by-the-book police work as well as normal social graces. The film also stars John Saxon and Martin Balsam as the criminals Mitchell pursues throughout the film. Linda Evans and Merlin Olsen appear in supporting roles as a prostitute and henchman, respectively. ''Mitchell'' was later re-released by Lorimar Productions in the 1980s.

!Plot:
A trade union lawyer named Walter Deaney murders a burglar in his house in cold blood. Only an unorthodox plain-clothes detective named Mitchell believes that Deaney is guilty, but Chief Albert Pallin 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, Pallin orders him to stake out the home of James Arthur Cummings, a wealthy man with ties to the mob whose "big scene" is the import and export of stolen merchandise. Although initially Mitchell is unconcerned with Cummings and focuses primarily on Deaney, he gets drawn in after Cummings discovers that Salvatore Mistretta, cousin of his mafioso benefactor Tony Gallano, 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, Deaney decides to work with Cummings to eliminate him. 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, Benton - is Mitchell, because he's no good to the police dead.

With the drug shipment about to arrive, Cummings offers Mitchell a deal. If Cummings 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. After agreeing to the deal, Cummings double-crosses Mitchell by alerting Mistretta to his real identity. He's also double-crossed Mistretta by replacing the heroin with chalk. Finally, Mistretta reveals his plan to double-cross Cummings by killing Mitchell and dumping his body on Cummings' boat.

Mistretta is killed in the subsequent gun battle, freeing Mitchell to go after Cummings on his boat. Mitchell is dropped there by helicopter, and kills Benton with a gaff hook. Cummings is killed after one final attempted double-cross fails. The film ends with Greta (having fallen in love with Mitchell) being hauled off to jail after Mitchell catches her with pot, while cynically joking that she'll just get a fine for drug possession.

* {{Bowdlerise}}: See Jerkass below. Originally it was something like "Asshole" or "Prick", not "Jerk", written on the windshield. Likely a cut intended for TV.

-->Greta walks up to Mitchell's stakeout car while he's inside with Cummings, and writes "Jerk" on the windshield in lipstick.\\

Mistretta is killed in the subsequent gun battle, freeing Mitchell to go after Cummings on his boat. Mitchell is dropped there by helicopter, and kills Benton with a gaff hook. Cummings is killed after one final attempted double-cross fails. The film ends with Greta (having fallen in love with Mitchell) being hauled off to jail after Mitchell catches her with pot, while cynically joking that she'll just get a fine for drug possession.

** To be fair, Mitchell ''only'' brings her in when he finds out she's a "Christmas gift". He doesn't care about drugs ''that'' much. The second time is purely PlayedForLaughs.

** Mistretta is the guy running the Voight-Kampff test at the beginning of ''BladeRunner''.

* ShoutOut: The ending is an {{Homage}} to ''KeyLargo''.