{"id":5532,"date":"2020-04-13T09:54:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T09:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=5532"},"modified":"2021-03-15T18:28:20","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T18:28:20","slug":"film-review-out-of-the-past-1947","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2020\/04\/13\/film-review-out-of-the-past-1947\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Review: Out of the Past (1947)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Kathie: Is there a way to win?<br>Jeff:&nbsp;&nbsp;Well, there\u2019s a way to lose more slowly.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every film noir has its unofficial motto: \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1kk3Xvw7jn0&amp;t=2m55s\">The stuff dreams are made of<\/a>\u201d from <em>The Maltese Falcon<\/em> (1941) or \u201cThis is beginning to assume fabulous aspects\u201d from <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3wYMsILwOew\">Laura<\/a><\/em> (1944) come to mind. The above exchange between Kathie Moffatt (Jane Greer) and Jeff Markham (Robert Mitchum) sums up <em>Out of the Past<\/em>, Jacques Tourneur\u2019s 1947 noir classic.\u00a0In this kind of film, nobody wins.\u00a0Part of the allure is seeing how characters figure out how to lose more slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Robert Mitchum ~  Out of The Past (1947)     Film Noir\" width=\"1170\" height=\"878\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aHn1L7drJwg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The film focuses on Jeff Bailey, an auto mechanic in a sunny nowhere town who can do things like take off work in the middle of the afternoon to go fishing with his girl (Virginia Huston). A man in a black trench coat shows up looking for Jeff, bringing with him the past to which the film\u2019s title refers. On the way to face that past, Jeff tells his girl Ann about his former name\u2014Jeff Markham\u2014and prior vocation\u2014private detective work. A big-time gangster Whit Sterling (played by a young and electric Kirk Douglas) hired Jeff to find his missing girlfriend, Kathie Moffatt. Jeff found her in Mexico but ended up running away with her when the two fell in love. Things went sour when Kathie killed Jeff\u2019s former partner who was threatening to turn the pair into Whit. Now, Kathie has gone back to Whit, and Whit feels it\u2019s time for Jeff to make restitution for his betrayal. In the noir universe, you don\u2019t get mulligans for your mistakes, and Jeff has made a few. The rest of the film plays out Jeff\u2019s attempt to lose as slowly as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert Mitchum\u2019s Jeff is one of noir\u2019s best protagonists.&nbsp;He\u2019s got the standard noir traits: he\u2019s a detective who smokes like a chimney, prefers action to yapping, and effortlessly manages to be one of the most interesting men in whatever room he\u2019s in.&nbsp;&nbsp;Plus, he\u2019s sharp, especially in recognizing how much of a chump he can be when a woman\u2019s involved.&nbsp;So, the character works not because Jeff is unique but because he\u2019s the perfect embodiment of film noir\u2019s anti-hero. Mitchum\u2019s physicality puts his cool, laconic style in further relief. He\u2019s the strong, silent type which provides a wonderful contrast to the firebrand energy emanating off of Kirk Douglas here in only his second film.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the men are only one half of the film\u2019s equation.&nbsp;Leonard Eels, an attorney who also crosses Whit, says, \u201cWomen are the 8th wonder of the world, because they all reduce men to the obvious.\u201d&nbsp;In this film that means they reduce men to their names: Sterling (money), Mark-ham (a gull), or even worse an Eel. Given the way the men behave in the film, such treatment is not unwarranted.&nbsp;&nbsp;There isn\u2019t a prominent male character who isn\u2019t in love with a woman beyond reason.&nbsp;&nbsp;Eels falls for his duplicitous secretary Meta Carson.&nbsp;&nbsp;Whit and Jeff both fall for Kathie, a woman who stole $40,000, shot her boyfriend, and killed at least one man.&nbsp;And as for Ann, the innocent country gal who goes fishing with Jeff on lazy afternoons? She\u2019s also being pursued by local law enforcement officer Jim, who says he\u2019s loved since he fixed her roller skates as a boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Six Cues of the Out of the Past Theme\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gjfp_ee5AOQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The settings are characters too. Film noir is an urban genre, but <em>Out of the Past<\/em> makes the rare move of contrasting city and country life, juxtaposing the corruption that comes with the urban environment with the peace and absolution offered by nature. Tourneur opens the film with some glorious panoramic shots of the Western mountains.&nbsp;&nbsp;Tahoe and other bodies of water shimmer against expansive landscapes and endless sky.&nbsp;And this is all in black and white.&nbsp;&nbsp;The film even lends these locales further reality by shooting them on location, providing a stark contrast to the urban scenes that are all shot in dingy interiors, places that seem more phony because they\u2019re more than likely compartments on an RKO set.&nbsp;The problem is that once you go to the city, you can never really leave it, and this movie gives you plenty of reasons to leave it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s some sort of primordial past that keeps calling to Jeff and Kathie, not just the details of their personal histories, but some sort of ur-narrative that lingers over or lies beneath the noir universe.&nbsp;&nbsp;\u201cYou&#8217;re no good and neither am I. That&#8217;s why we deserve each other,\u201d Kathie tells Jeff. We could call it the fall, a sort of intuitive recognition that paradise, somehow and someway, has been lost.&nbsp;&nbsp;Confronted with a bleak world, the best these characters can hope for is to lose more slowly.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Out of the Past (1947) Robert Mitchum , Jane Greer\" width=\"1170\" height=\"878\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iYFqWtCOWbs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The characters may not be good, but the movie is great. Just like the best noirs, you know the inevitable is coming, but oh, what a way to lose!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The characters in Jacques Tourneur\u2019s 1947 noir classic Out of the Past may not be good, but the movie is great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":5533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[342],"tags":[360],"class_list":["post-5532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-studies","tag-film-reviews","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5532"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5545,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions\/5545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}