Out of the Past (1947) - film review

Jeff Bailey is leading a contented if uneventful life as a petrol station owner in a backwater town when his murky past suddenly catches up with him.   A stranger appears and asks him to get in touch with Whit Sterling, one of Jeff’s former clients when he worked as a private detective.  Sterling once hired Bailey to track down his girlfriend, Kathie Moffat, who ran off with a large sum of his money.  Jeff found Kathie in Mexico and fell instantly in love with her.  Their plans to start a new life together were derailed when Jeff’s business partner turned up and was shot dead by Kathie.  Years later, when he meets up with Sterling, Jeff is surprised that Kathie has returned to her former lover, but he has no option but to accept his new assignment – to recover tax records which incriminate Sterling.  Unfortunately, it is unclear where Kathie’s loyalties lie and it is quite possible that she might be setting Jeff up for an almighty fall...

If there is just one film noir that every film enthusiast should see, this most definitely has to be it.  Out of the Past is the absolute quintessential film noir thriller, loaded with just about everything the genre has to offer, all served up with consummate style – haunting dream-like cinematography, a plot to make your head spin, the most alluring femme fatale, and the definitive noir hero.  This is a film which shames many earlier film noirs into looking like crude experiments in a new art form, and it had a significant influence on all subsequent noir thrillers.   Out of the Past is film noir Heaven, and one of the treasures of American cinema.

Like any self-respecting film noir, Out of the Past has a plot so convoluted that you have to watch the film at least three times to fully comprehend every twist and turn, but given how beautifully composed and satisfying the film is this is hardly a chore.   The plot may be complex, but the screenplay is excellent, with far better characterisation and dialogue than in many B movies of this era.  The film was based on the novel Build My Gallows High (which is the film’s alternative title) by Daniel Mainwaring who, under the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes, was one of Hollywood’s most respected screenwriters.

The film was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who had acquired a solid reputation in Hollywood for making films of great artistry and impact on very low budgets.  He is perhaps best known for his classic fantasy-horror films such as Cat People (1942)  and I Walked with a Zombie (1943).  His distinctive style was greatly influenced by that of his father, Maurice Tourneur, an accomplished French filmmaker whose films of the 1930s contained many of the elements of early film noir and who could even be described as the father of classic film noir.

Out of the Past catapulted the virtually unknown actor Robert Mitchum to stardom in what became his defining role – the laconic world-weary hero with one fatal weakness - an attraction for dangerous women.  In this film, that femme fatale is played to perfection by Jane Greer, who wraps her seductive charm and penchant for deadly deceit tightly in a sleek cloak of characteristic film noir ambiguity.  Mitchum and Greer have a natural on-screen rapport – they are drawn to each other like the opposing poles of two magnets -  bringing an emotional depth and sensual realism that is often missing from even the better film noirs.  They would star together in only one other film, The Big Steal (1949), a not so hot parody of the film noir thriller.  Greer would appear in a supporting role in Against All Odds, Taylor Hackford’s vastly inferior 1984 remake of Out of the Past.

© James Travers 2008

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