Out of the Past (1947)

As Good As It Gets

A Masterpiece!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie is an ideal launching pad into the "noir" genre. No need to bore folks with the necessary elements of film noir, simply watch and enjoy. My only issue with the film is a slight confusion, possibly a continuity issue. When jeff travels to SF to acquire the tax records, I found some confusion in the death location of Eels. Jeff and Meta visit Ells and leave. They go to a new location, Meta gets out, Jeff stays behind and stakes it out. Eventually Eels body is discovered in the building by Jeff BUT they had left him at the previous location. How did Eels get from his residence to the Mason building? Am I missing something? Otherwise, a brilliant film.

I had a feeling that as soon as I watched this movie that it would be a great one, but it was much better than I expected it to be, Jacques Tourneur's "Out of the Past" is not the ordinary film-noir type of movie that anyone would expect even though it has pretty much the same formula for a typical movie in the genre the only difference being that the story of this movie isn't told in the traditional way. The movie stars Robert Mitchum in one of his best performances as Jeff Markham, a man who escapes his past to run a gas station only to see his past catch right up to him again. There are a lot of flashback scenes in this movie to explain the events that have been troubling his mind during the first half of the movie, and during those sequences we meet his ex-lover Kathie (Jane Greer), and a mobster named Whit (Kirk Douglas) who after we get to know them he gets framed for murder. Years after the flashback sequences took place Kathie is now Whit's lover, and Jeff is sent to San Francisco to meet with a woman named Meta Carson (Rhonda Fleming) to try to help him out of this mess he's in. Markham talks about all of these things to his girlfriend Ann (Virginia Huston). Tourneur's direction is very skilled here and because of it he made a masterpiece that ranks among the best film-noir classics of all time. The 1940s were the first decade to make these types of movies popular despite dwindling in the 1950s, Mitchum, Greer, Douglas, and Fleming each deserved Oscar nominations for their very good work in this movie. even though it isn't the best movie of 1947 it is one of them. Mitchum certainly gives one of the best performances of his career but it surely isn't as good as his truly sinister roles in "The Night of the Hunter" (1955), or in "Cape Fear" (1962). Kirk Douglas is also very good here with one of his very best performances as well. It was a great movie to watch but even though it doesn't lose any stars in my opinion, the only minor problem I had was that it wasn't as suspenseful as I thought it would be.

A common theme in cinema is a person whose past comes back to haunt him/her. Even if you've seen a number of these, you can't afford to miss Jacques Tourneur's "Out of the Past". When you start it, you might be confused to see the setting in northern California. However, there's a lot in store. Robert Mitchum's gas station owner gets forced to confront gangsters, femme fatales, and corruption when it gets revealed that he's not who he says he is. There's a lot in store here.I don't know if I would call "Out of the Past" the best film noir ever - I haven't seen that many - but it's got everything that makes a movie great. I found Jane Greer's amoral lover of Kirk Douglas's slimy businessman to be the most interesting character. We pretty much assume that the men are going to be hard-boiled, but the women also have their own tough sides.The photography isn't as stylized as we're used to in this genre, but the plot and characters more than make up for that. The ending is a shock, but it's understood that this was the only possible outcome.An undeniable classic.

From start to finish, this film-noir keeps you on the edge of your seat. Lies and double lives gives our lead, Robert Mitchum, all the disaster that could come his way. "Out of the Past" is the very definition of film-noir. The film takes place most often in the middle of the night and does some jumping around with story until it all falls together like dominoes. The use of shadows and eerie background music amplifies the intensity as the plot thickens and moves forward.The acting in the film was great and even had me branded a sucker a few times due to a love triangle. I would recommend this to anyone who appreciates a good film-noir/crime drama.