Film #4: Home from the Hill (1960)

Directed by Vincente Minelli
Written by Harriet Frank, Jr. and Irving Ravetch
Starring Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard, George Hamilton

The fourth film in the Robert Mitchum set is one I’d never seen prior to watching the set for these reviews: Home from the Hill, a 1960 flick about a wealthy Texas family. Mitchum is the womanizing patriarch, who has a strained relationship with his wife (Parker) and has taken it upon himself to school his son (Hamilton) in the woodsy ways of being a man’s man — fishing, hunting, and the like.

(Image via Film Affinity)
(Image via Film Affinity)
I’m usually a big fan of Vincente Minelli’s films, but this one was not a favorite for me. It took too long to grab my interest, and even when that did happen, I never became fully engrossed by the film. There is some nice exploration of generational gaps and the complexity of young adulthood, but the story isn’t particularly gripping.

This “Greatest Classic Legends” set is interesting in that the shadowy, sinister Angel Face and Out of the Past pair well together, as do the more outdoorsy Home from the Hill and The Sundowners. If marathoning all four films as I did, Home is not nearly as interesting as the other films in the set. It would be difficult for anything to measure up to Out of the Past, which I watched directly before this film. That juxtaposition probably made me like this film a little less, and perhaps I’ll find it more enjoyable upon individual re-watch.

That being said, the performances are quite good. I loved the contrast between Peppard and Hamilton’s characters. And I must give a little TMP Cute Puppy Bonus for the plethora of hunting dogs that appear in the film.

Special features: Theatrical trailer
The theatrical trailer is the only special feature on this disc.

Our exploration of TCM’s Greatest Classic Legends: Robert Mitchum DVD set concludes today with the final feature, Home from the Hill. Thanks for tagging along! If you missed ’em, here are the previous reviews from this set:
Angel Face | Out of the Past | The Sundowners