Out of the Past (1947)

Tagline: A MAN – Trying to run away from his past… A WOMAN – Trying to escape her future!

Out of the Past (1947) is one of the greatest, multi-layered film noirs of all time. The downbeat screenplay was based on Geoffrey Homes’ (a pseudonym – his real name was Daniel Mainwaring) 1946 novel Build My Gallows High, a book that consciously imitated Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Director Jacques Tourneur, who collaborated with legendary producer Val Lewton, was well-known for his subtle horror films, including Cat People (1942) and I Walked With A Zombie (1943). (And this film marked the third and final time that Tourneur worked with cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca.) His masterful ability to create a doom-laden, dark, shadowy mood of terror, assisted by black and white cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, is perfectly blended into this tragic film noir classic. Unfortunately, the film was ignored and lacked even a single nomination by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The quintessential classic film noir masterpiece from RKO, a definitive flashback film of melodramatic doom, contains all the elements of the genre. First and foremost, there is an irresistible but deadly, chameleon-like femme fatale (Greer) who is the object of romantic fascination for both a detective Mitchum) and a gangster (Douglas). Themes of betrayal, passion, and a cynical, perverse, and a morally ambiguous atmosphere are all interwoven and entangled together in a confusing and convoluted dark plot (mixing narrative flashback with linear narrative) with both double- and triple-crosses. Eventually, all three individuals meet their inescapable, tragic ends typical of a Shakespearean-level tragedy.

The three major figures in the film are iconic symbols, perfectly and vividly portrayed: the sleepy-eyed, ill-fated, joyless and laconic investigator Jeff (Robert Mitchum in one of his defining roles), lethal and slick racketeer/gangster czar Whit (Kirk Douglas in his fourth film), and the self-indulgent, lethal, and erotic enchantress Kathie (Jane Greer) – she ultimately has the upper hand over both male leads. Director Taylor Hackford’s remake, titled Against All Odds (1984), starring Jeff Bridges, James Woods and Rachel Ward (and with Jane Greer in a cameo role as the mother of her original character), was an inferior work.

Directed by: Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Huston, Paul Valentine, Dickie Moore, Ken Niles, Brooks Benedict, Eumenio Blanco, Mildred Boyd
Screenplay by: Daniel Mainwaring
Cinematography by: Nicholas Musuraca
Film Editing by: Samuel E. Beetley
Costume Design by: Edward Stevenson
Set Decoration by: Darrell Silvera, John McCarthy Jr.
Art Direction by: Albert S. D’Agostino, Jack Okey
Music by: Roy Webb
Distributed by: RKO Radio Pictures
Release Date: November 25, 1947