OUT OF THE PAST is a veritable text book on film nor filled with with noir music, noir camera work, noir plotting, and of course peopled with iconic noir characters including sleepy-eyed, ill-fated, laconic investigator Jeff (Robert Mitchum); slick and lethal racketeer/gangster czar (Kirk Douglas); and self-indulgent, erotic and dangerous femme fatale Kathie (Jane Greer). Jeff, currently a small-town gas pumper, finds one day that his mysterious past has caught up when he's ordered him to meet with his ex-employer, Whit (Douglas). En route to the meeting, Jeff confesses to his girlfriend this story – in flashback – that he was once a private eye hired by gambler Whit to find his mistress Kathie (Greer), who had shot him and vamoosed with $40K. Jeff traced her to Acapulco, where she seduced him into forgetting all about Whit and the purloined loot. Back in the present, Whit's job offer is clearly a get-even scheme. But in true noir tradition, Jeff allows himself to be pulled back in despite his worst suspicions. Want to see a real and really great film nor? Put OUT OF THE PAST into your present viewing queue.
OUT OF THE PAST aka BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH (1947)
Impossible to ig-noir Fate
OUT OF THE PAST is a veritable text book on film nor filled with with noir music, noir camera work, noir plotting, and of course peopled with iconic noir characters including sleepy-eyed, ill-fated, laconic investigator Jeff (Robert Mitchum); slick and lethal racketeer/gangster czar (Kirk Douglas); and self-indulgent, erotic and dangerous femme fatale Kathie (Jane Greer). Jeff, currently a small-town gas pumper, finds one day that his mysterious past has caught up when he's ordered him to meet with his ex-employer, Whit (Douglas). En route to the meeting, Jeff confesses to his girlfriend this story – in flashback – that he was once a private eye hired by gambler Whit to find his mistress Kathie (Greer), who had shot him and vamoosed with $40K. Jeff traced her to Acapulco, where she seduced him into forgetting all about Whit and the purloined loot. Back in the present, Whit's job offer is clearly a get-even scheme. But in true noir tradition, Jeff allows himself to be pulled back in despite his worst suspicions. Want to see a real and really great film nor? Put OUT OF THE PAST into your present viewing queue.
