Out of the Past (1947)

Jeff (Robert Mitchum) runs a gas station in a small town and is dating the local good girl. His life is interrupted when a gangster’s hit-man shows up to tell him that his boss, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas), wants to see him. Jeff used to be a detective, hired by Whit to find his mistress, Kathie Moffatt (Jane Greer), who’d shot him and ran out with $40,000. Jeff had found her, but fallen for her and doublecrossed Whit. Now, Jeff has no choice but to deal with his past.

Out of the Past may be the purest Film Noir. I can’t think of another that could claim the title. Every more famous Noir either deviates from the tropes or introduces something new. Out of the Past just delivers those tropes, one after the other, and lets them fly wherever they may. We have a dangerous world, marked by Venetian blind lighting. A sense of doom hangs over the picture. There’s the world-weary PI who takes on a questionable case where all is not as it appears. We’ve got murderers and gangsters all around. There’s the femme fatale who can, for a time, control any man and whose motives are blacker than the hired killers. We’ve got a plot that twists into absurdity to the point that Mitchum said (perhaps joking) that a couple pages of the screenplay were lost. Everyone speaks in a snappy style, often dropping bits of philosophy into mundane conversations, if any conversation can be considered mundane. A few people get shot and a few get knocked out. And there is no hope for our “hero” or any of those from his past. That’s pretty much the definition of Film Noir.

Mitchum is his normal lackadaisical self—he was never an energetic actor—and for this story, that works. Jeff has accepted his fate before we start, only with the caveat that if he has to die, he’s “going to die last.” Douglas is better, making his villain surprisingly sympathetic. He’s tightly controlled, but there’s a buzz under his skin and I was waiting for him to explode. Best of all his Greer who makes Kathie one of the most evil of the many despicable femme fatales that dot the genre. She’s sexy and almost appears innocent for a time…almost. The film hums when all three are on screen together.

Out of the Past has been re-evaluated in recent years, rising out of its B-movie roots to be considered one of the finest Noirs, but it doesn’t deserve the acclaim. It is a passably good film and if I wanted to teach a class on what Film Noir is, then this would be in the syllabus, but it isn’t anything special. If you know the genre, you know how it will all play out, except from time to time when people act particularly stupidly (or when a fishing pole becomes more lethal than a pistol). Jeff may fit the picture, but isn’t engaging. I didn’t care what would happen to him. And the symbolism is even more heavy handed than is normal for Noir: Small town, daylight, and nature equals truth and goodness; City and night equals corruption. I could have done with one less fishing scene. Out of the Past is more educational than enjoyable, but if you ignore the hype, it will do.

Director Jacques Tourneur is best remember for his horror films Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and Curse of the Demon.