While surfing You Tube for a clip from Charles Laughton’s Night Of The Hunter, I stumbled across an online interview on the Dick Cavett show with Robert Mitchum in 1971.
Having thoroughly enjoyed this I then tuned into Cavett’s equally brilliant interviews with Richard Burton (1980) and Marlon Brando (1973).
All three shows are absorbing in a way that current talk shows rarely are these days. I can’t imagine David Letterman or Craig Ferguson drawing so much from such prestigious guests since both are so focused on getting laughs. They wouldn’t have the patience, tact or intellect to appreciate that serious conversations can be just as riveting as those which consist primarily of prompts for gags or anecdotes. Continue reading
