Oh Dad, a Search for Robert Mitchum

Robert Mitchum - aka 'Mr Bad Taste', 'Trouble Himself', 'The Man with the Immoral Face', 'Daddy Bad' - was the original Hollywood bad-boy and one of the greatest screen actors of the twentieth century. But his pre-fame life is cloaked in mystery, the truth hidden within conflicting tales of time spent as a Depression-era hobo, prizefighter, escaped felon - and secret poet. Writer and broadcaster Lloyd Robson trailed the Eastern Seaboard in search of Mitchum, his poetry, America, a surrogate father, and how to be a man. "Oh Dad!" is the result - a boozy, drug-fuelled attempt to define masculinity in the modern age and to match the standards set by the ultimate man and the personification of Film Noir, Robert Mitchum.