Line #21 Film/Mitchell


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mitchell_1974.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:310:[[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou The Chubby Blue Line is about to stab you!]]]]
3
4	->''"My, my, my, my, Mitchell. What would your momma say?''\
5	''If she ever knew that you were crawlin' out and carryin' on that way...''\
6	''Crackin' their heads, and jumpin' in and out of beds and hangin' 'round the criminal scene.''\
7	''Do you think you are some kind of a star, like the guys on the movie screen?"''
8	-->--'''Hoyt Axton'''[='s=] ThematicThemeTune.
9
10	''Mitchell'' is a 1975 action/crime film directed by Andrew V. [=McLaglen=] and starring Creator/JoeDonBaker as the [[ProtagonistTitle title character]]: an abrasive, unpopular, alcoholic, deeply unpleasant UsefulNotes/LosAngeles police detective.
11
12	The film opens with the shooting of an unarmed home invader by wealthy union lawyer Walter Deaney (Creator/JohnSaxon). 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 Mafia-affiliated businessman James Arthur Cummings (Creator/MartinBalsam), who is involved in trafficking stolen merchandise and later drugs. Meanwhile, Deaney sends Mitchell a high-priced prostitute named Greta (Creator/LindaEvans) to try and butter him up. After a disturbing sex scene involving beer and baby oil, he arrests her for having pot. Eventually Deaney tries to kill Mitchell, but dies in the attempt. Cummings, meanwhile, is trying to stop some rival Italian mobsters from bringing a shipment of heroin through his port. After a rather lengthy scene of Mitchell yelling at a child, Cummings manipulates Mitchell into believing he'll help him to catch the mobsters, while in reality planning to abscond with the heroin and set Mitchell up for the crime. But 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 (Merlin Olsen) and finally Cummings himself. Returning home to find Greta waiting for him, Mitchell goes ahead and arrests her again for good measure (she's revealed to have been high on pot, thus letting the viewer understand why she was willing to sleep with Mitchell).
13
14	Initially released by Creator/AlliedArtists, the film was later recut for television by Creator/{{Lorimar}} to remove all of the nudity, profanity, and violence, with some scenes obviously having been shot twice during production to remove swearing. It was the Lorimar cut that appeared on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' in 1993, now further cut 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 with ''[=MST3K=]'' fans, largely due to its jokes focusing on the unpleasantness of the Mitchell character. It also featured the departure of the show's original host Creator/JoelHodgson, thus guaranteeing its visibility among other episodes. Not surprisingly, it's this version of ''Mitchell'' that most people are familiar with.
15
16	For the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode see ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E12Mitchell here]]''.
17	----
18	!!This film contains examples of:
19
20	* AffablyEvil: Cummings is ''immensely'' more likable than Mitchell, and even gives him some good advice on how to be nicer (it amounts to "Don't shoot people you want information from"). Then again, Cummings feels Mitchell is an asset, in more ways that one. For one, the fact Mitchell is staking him out despite doing nothing legally wrong tips Cummings on his compatriots drug smuggling, something he wants ''no'' part of. He leaks info to Mitchell, and later tries to use him to get Deaney and Mistretta out of the way. [[VillainBall Had he not tried to abscond with the drug money himself, he'd have successfully eliminated unwanted partners.]]
21	* AdaptationInducedPlotHole: The opening credits show a super slo-mo (about 1 frame-per-second) shot of Mitchell heaving a rock at the ground. This is from a scene late in the movie where he bludgeons a henchman to death with said rock. In the TV cut of the film, that whole scene is edited out, but the opening credits are the same. It doesn't make much difference, as it's hard to even tell what he's doing in the slo-mo version, and it doesn't make much more sense to have it in the opening credits to start with.
22	* AntiHero: Mitchell combines elements of the classic definition (lacks heroic traits like... competence) and the modern definition (having a moral goal but doing immoral things to get there).
23	* BadBoss: Police Chief Pallin. While, in fairness, his subordinate Mitchell is at no risk of winning any Employee Of The Year awards, it remains that Pallin chews him out for actually doing his job (questioning Deaney enough to find the holes in his story) and pulls him off the Deaney case without immediately explaining why. He then assigns Mitchell to a stakeout with no partner and no resources other than a car to sleep in.
24	* BattleButler: Benton is presumably one of these to Cummings. While he does fight Mitchell on the boat at the end, he doesn't do a particularly good job of it. And Cummings clearly doesn't think he's even a good ''butler''.
25	* BadassBoast: Mitchell ''seems'' to try and invoke this when talking to Deaney after finding out he was the one who paid Greta. Deaney seems unconvinced. [[spoiler:Though Mitchell ends up being right.]]
26	-->'''Mitchell:''' "She'll lie in ''my'' bed for ''nothin'''."
27	* BigBadEnsemble: The movie has at least ''four'' characters who could count as the BigBad and are all at odds with each other. Deaney is the first one we meet, though Cummings becomes more important at the end. There is also Mistretta and Gallano, although the latter seems to [[KarmaHoudini get away]]. Most likely they planned to have him come back in a sequel or a tv series that [[StillbornFranchise never materialized.]]
28	* BoomHeadshot: How Cummings is dispatched when Mitchell gets the drop on him. The theatrical cut includes a brief closeup of him staring agape with blood trickling down from the fresh bullet hole in his forehead before he collapses.
29	* {{Bowdlerise}}: See Jerkass below. Originally it was "Bastard", not "Jerk", written on the windshield. Likely a cut intended for TV. In the same scene, during the argument with the kid, "Piss off!" was reshot as "Buzz off!"
30	** The scene where Cummings yells at Benton was shot twice -- once with "you're a goddamn awful butler", and once with the even more surreal and childish "you're a ''lousy'' butler"; this is especially strange since the profanity is completely useless in the scene, and if the unwieldy word "goddamn" (which was too long to dub around, prompting the re-shoots) was removed, it would make almost no difference.
31	* TheCassandra: Poor Cummings. He hears about a drug shipment coming into his port from the ''cops'' before he hears about it from the person actually making the shipment. Yet his pleas that [[TheInfiltration something has clearly gone badly wrong]] and that at the very least a change in plans is in order, fall on deaf ears. Little wonder he ultimately decides, [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder to hell with everybody.]]
32	* ChalkOutline: Tape version, which plays a role in Mitchell's unauthorized investigation at Deaney's house. Mitchell uses the tape outline to judge the height of the robber and the length of his arm compared to himself, and figures out that the robber was too short to reach where the gun Deaney had planted was normally stored.
33	* ChaseScene: The film features a particularly lame car chase, perhaps the only one in cinema where the two sides bother using their ''turn signals''.
34	* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Had Cummings played straight with Mitchell and not tried to double cross ''him'', too, he'd have gotten off scot-free.
35	* CowboyCop: At the very least, Mitchell ''thinks'' he fits this role, but he doesn't display the usual competence you'd expect from one. It remains unclear whether this was a deliberate attempt to [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruct]] this trope or just a poorly-done straight example.
36	* {{Determinator}}: One of Mitchell's few redeeming qualities.
37	* DidIMentionItsChristmas: The film actually takes place during the holidays (a Christmas tree is visible in the scenes at Deaney's house, Christmas cards can be seen at the police station, Greta is hired as a "Christmas gift" for Mitchell), but it doesn't really figure into the plot at all.
38	** Which also implicitly makes it AnAssKickingChristmas.
39	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: "I'm sorry, the beer got a little excited."
40	* DrugsAreBad: Mitchell doesn't seem to care if Greta's a prostitute (at least as long as she doesn't try to charge ''him''), but as soon as she pulls out a joint, he hauls her in for possession. ''Twice''. However, the first time he busted her was because she called him a dirty cop, ''daring'' him to arrest her for possession. The second time is PlayedForLaughs.
41	* EnemyCivilWar: Half the reason Mitchell wins is that Mistretta and Cummings are engaged in one of these because Cummings, understandably, doesn't want to deal with the hijacked heroin shipment.
42	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Our first look at Mitchell is in the cop cruiser on its way up to Deaney's residence to investigate the shooting... and Mitchell is asleep in the back seat.
43	* EvilVersusEvil: Deaney, Cummings, and Mistretta are all mutual enemies. Mitchell himself borders on this as well, given what a [[{{Jerkass}} sleazy jerk]] he is.
44	* FanDisservice: Baby oil.
45	-->'''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Crow T. Robot]]:''' My, my, my, '''''MY GOD, NOOOOO!!'''''
46	* FingertipDrugAnalysis: Done by Mitchell and Mistretta. Both immediately realize the heroin's been switched with chalk.
47	* {{Fingore}}: In the uncut version, Mitchell catches up to the Larry Miller-esque mook who ran him off the road and hangs a beating on him, capping it off by slamming a car door on the mook's fingers. '''Ow.'''
48	* ForTheEvulz: Deaney's killing of the Mexican burglar. He claimed it was self-defense, but in reality the burglar was unarmed, hadn't actually stolen anything and was trying to run away, Deaney called him back and shot him purely for the malicious pleasure.
49	* FrameUp: Deaney plants one of his guns on the burglar after shooting him to justify his claims of self-defense. However when shown where the gun came from, Mitchell quickly deduces the burglar was ''too short'' to have easily reached it.
50	* GambitPileup: Okay, so Cummings double-crosses Mistretta and Mitchell, Mistretta plans to double-cross Cummings and kill Mitchell, and Mitchell is going through the motions of cooperating so he can take his time and arrest everyone. Mitchell somehow manages to come out on top and kill all the bad guys, but it's a narrow scrape.
51	* GoodIsNotNice: Mitchell.
52	** 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 Deaney's story) without explaining why Mitchell should drop it (at first).
53	* GoKartingWithBowser: Cummings invites Mitchell in for dinner.
54	* GuttedLikeAFish: Benton's fate, when Mitchell tears his abdomen open with a gaff hook. Even in the uncut version the effect is not overly graphic or bloody and the resulting wound is kept out of frame, but this is why he suddenly keels over and falls off the boat in the middle of strangling Mitchell a short time later.
55	* HollywoodLaw: It is extremely unlikely that Deaney would have ever been brought up on murder charges even if he had told the police the exact circumstances under which he shot the burglar. California law creates a presumption that a person is reasonably afraid of death or of great bodily harm if someone breaks into their house unlawfully and forcibly. Shooting an intruder in your home, even if he is running away, is self-defense. Even though the burglar was running away from Deaney when Deaney shot him, his exit path through the house took him through the room where Deaney kept his guns. In other words, if Deaney had said, "I was afraid he was running to get one of my guns," a prosecutor would bear the burden of both trying to prove that the burglar wasn't trying to do that, and that Deaney didn't THINK he was trying to do that.
56	** Mitchell's stakeout of Cummings is a joke. He is told to sit in a car parked across the street from Cumming's front door where he looks the most conspicuous for sixteen hours a day. He has no relief, the stakeout just kinda ''pauses'' if Mitchell has to leave to get something to eat or take a leak, and during the eight hours he's allowed to go home and sleep. He doesn't even have a partner. Cummings would have to be blind to not know the surveillance was going on, and he would have to be an idiot to not be able to figure out how to cheat it. Justified, in that Mitchell is told by a department friend that the chief is trying to silently get Mitchell out of the way.
57	* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Although at first she's being paid to sleep with Mitchell as a bribe, by the end of the movie, she's willing to do it for free -- thus demonstrating either utter lack of taste or the charity of a saint.
58	** [[spoiler:Although Mitchell turns down this offer, and we are led to believe he turns Greta back in to the police on further drug possession charges anyhow.]]
59	* HypocriticalHumor: Cummings lectures Mitchell on his unlikeable personality and how he should try harder to cultivate good relationships, but all the while Cummings is relentlessly browbeating and insulting his butler, Benton. Granted, this is definitely one of those cases of [[HypocriteHasAPoint the kettle still being black]].
60	* IdiotBall: TheMafia, in general. They plan to traffick drugs through Cummings, but don't bother to tell him this before he learns it ''from the cops''. This would be idiotic enough on its own, but then they want Cummings to go through with the deal even with a loose cannon cop (Mitchell) staking him out practically on his driveway! In the end, it's little wonder that Cummings decides to double-cross ''everyone''.
61	* IncrediblyObviousTail: Mitchell doesn't even ''try'' to be subtle at staking out Cummings.
62	* {{Jerkass}}: Everyone in the movie thinks Mitchell is an asshole. '''Even the villain'''. And they're right.
63	** Greta walks up to Mitchell's stakeout car while he's inside with Cummings, and writes "Bastard"/"Jerk" on the windshield in lipstick.
64	* JerkassHasAPoint: Mitchell may be a dick, but he's the only one who figures out that Deaney's 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.
65	** The glance the other two cops give each other implies they know Deaney's story is BS, but since the FBI was already investigating him they figured it was best just to drop it. However...
66	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: ...Mitchell is more of a KnightErrant than them, and [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight is determined to see justice done.]]
67	* 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.
68	* JustBetweenYouAndMe: Mistretta, who by all account has never met Mitchell and thus has no reason to gloat, does this while he and his {{Mooks}} have Mitchell at gunpoint.
69	* TheMafia / TheSyndicate: Cummings works with them, but they are clearly idiots, doing things like involving Cummings in drug shipments but keeping him in the dark until he finds out about it from the ''police''... and then insisting he take the shipment anyway, even with a reckless cop staking out his house! Thanks to Cummings going to Mistretta to get him out of legal trouble in the past, he's forced to kowtow to their demands.
70	* MaleGaze: Inadvertently subverted by the boot-to-face upward sweep of Linda Evans when she first arrives at Mitchell's place. She's wearing a bulky fur coat that hides her figure.
71	* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: Deaney killing a burglar evolves into Mitchell taking on a massive drug smuggling operation by TheMafia.
72	%%* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine
73	* OvertRendezvous: Cummings meets with Gallano on a park bench to express his displeasure over getting the shipment dumped on his shoulders, only to be reminded by Gallano about their longstanding arrangement.
74	* PantsPositiveSafety: A gun falls out one of Mitchell's pant legs in one scene because he had stashed it in his waistband.
75	* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Deaney refers to the Mexican thief as a "wetback." Mitchell is not amused.
76	* PornStash: Greta finds Mitchell's, and asks him if she's as good as the models inside.[[note]]'''Servo:''' ''(as Mitchell)'' Uh, got an airbrush?[[/note]]
77	* PunishmentDetail: 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. It's pretty much confirmed in dialogue when Mitchell is briefed on-site, but he's [[{{Determinator}} determined to succeed anyway.]]
78	* RecklessGunUsage: Deaney admits he doesn't know which guns in his gun cabinet are loaded as an excuse to why he shot the cat burglar. Mitchell immediately realizes Deaney is trying to bullshit the police.
79	* RunForTheBorder: Cummings attempts to flee to Mexico by boat after double-crossing Mistretta and Mitchell.
80	* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Mitchell. He refuses to let the vile Deaney go for shooting an unarmed intruder.
81	* SerialEscalation: Mitchell goes from the shooting of a burglar to dealing with a major international drug cartel and ''ending'' it.
82	* ShoutOut:
83	** The ending is an {{Homage}} to (or outright ripoff of) ''Film/KeyLargo.'' The casual killing of a minority (Native American in the original, Mexican here) is another reference to the ''Key Largo''.
84	** The whole film appears to be an attempt at "''Film/DirtyHarry'' [[JustForFun/XMeetsY meets]] ''Film/TheLongGoodbye''," with one character (Gallano) who seems like he got lost on the way to the set of ''Film/TheGodfather''.
85	* SmugSnake: Deaney, who assumes that his connections and charm will help him get away with any crime.
86	* SomethingElseAlsoRises: As Mitchell watches Greta wipe the spilled beer off her knee, his concealed revolver falls down his pant leg, looking briefly like a massive descending bulge.
87	* SpannerInTheWorks: Mitchell is a walking disaster for every character's plans, up to and including his own department's. The amazing thing is he rarely bothers to do anything proactive. He mostly just hangs around and waits for the bad guys to screw up on their own before he acts against them.
88	* StopCopyingMe: Done to the point that it drives Mitchell insane. Even though Mitchell ''[[{{Jerkass}} started]]'' it.
89	-->'''Boy:''' My mother doesn't like you.\
90	'''Mitchell:''' Well I don't like your mother.\
91	'''Boy:''' Why not?[[note]]meaning "Why don't you like her?"[[/note]]\
92	'''Mitchell:''' Why not?[[note]]meaning "Why shouldn't I dislike her?"[[/note]]\
93	'''Boy:''' No, why not?\
94	'''Mitchell:''' No, why not.\
95	'''Boy:''' Why are you repeating what I say?\
96	'''Mitchell:''' Why are you repeating what ''I'' say?\
97	'''Boy:''' I'm not!\
98	'''Mitchell:''' Well, I'm not.\
99	'''Boy:''' You are!\
100	'''Mitchell:''' Piss off.\
101	'''Boy:''' What?\
102	'''Mitchell:''' What?\
103	'''Boy:''' What did you say?\
104	'''Mitchell:''' What did you say?\
105	'''Boy:''' Did you say something?\
106	'''Mitchell:''' Did you say something?\
107	'''Boy:''' You said piss off!\
108	'''Mitchell:''' You're lying through your teeth!\
109	'''Boy:''' YOU'RE LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH!\
110	'''Mitchell:''' Piss off, huh?\
111	'''Boy:''' Piss off!\
112	'''Mitchell:''' '''''PISS OFF, KID!!'''''
113	* TooDumbToLive: At one point Mitchell does a FingertipDrugAnalysis and takes a big old lick of what he thinks is heroin. While it's really just chalk, it's still pretty dumb, as it could have been something poisonous (as the trope page explains), and if it really was heroin, getting that high from it would make it a ''little'' hard to fight effectively.
114	* VillainBall: Cummings would've almost certainly gotten away scot-free if he hadn't tried to double-cross Mistretta and Mitchell, since Mitchell hadn't uncovered any evidence that a DA would consider using against Cummings apart from knowing about a heroin shipment.
115	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The censored TV edit cuts out the scene where Deaney and one his goons try to kill Mitchell, but end up dead, themselves. (Mitchell bashes the goon's skull in with a rock, and Deaney dies trying to flee when [[MadeOfExplodium his dune buggy takes a bad bounce and explodes]].) As a result, it seems that Deaney just sort of disappears partway through the movie. Although, there is a news announcement of Deaney's death on Mitchell's car radio in a later scene.

Context Film / Mitchell