Review: "Out of the Past" is an Entertaining Film-Noir (Happy B'day, Kirk Douglas)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Out of the Past (1947) – Black & White
Running time: 97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
NR – not rated by the MPAA
DIRECTOR:  Jacques Tourneur
WRITERS:  Geoffrey Homes (based upon the novel Build My Gallows High by Geoffrey Homes)
PRODUCER:  Warren Duff
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Nicholas Musuraca
EDITOR:  Samuel E. Beetley
COMPOSER: Roy Webb

FILM-NOIR/DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring:  Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Houston, Paul Valentine, Dickie Moore, and Ken Niles with (no screen credit) Theresa Harris, Caleb Peterson, and Wallace Scott

The subject of this movie review is Out of the Past, a 1947 film noir drama and thriller from director Jacques Tourneur.  The film is based on the 1946 novel, Build My Gallows High, by Geoffrey Homes (the penname of author Daniel Mainwaring), who also wrote the screenplay adapting his novel for this film.  Frank Fenton and James M. Cain also contributed to the writing of the screenplay, but did not receive screen credit.

Out of the Past stars Robert Mitchum as a private eye who escapes his past and runs a gas station in a small town.  Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer star as the hood and his dame (respectively), and they are the past that catches up to the former private eye.

Out of the Past is a definitive classic of film noir; some even consider it the best noir film ever.  It is certainly a film that stands the test of time because it is not only fondly remembered and on the National Film Registry, it was also remade as the 1984 film, Against All Odds.  Who can forget Phil Collins’ powerful theme song for the film?

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is a gas station owner with a troubled past.  It catches up with him when a tough looking, film heavy named Joe Stephanos (Paul Valentine) comes looking for Jeff and tells him he needs to take a trip.  Stephanos and his employer are “acquaintances” of Jeff’s.  So Jeff’s trip is to pay a visit to that old friend, gambler and mobster, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas).  It turns out Jeff was once a private eye named Jeff Markham (told in a flashback) whom Sterling hired to find his mistress, Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), a drop-dead gorgeous woman who’d shot Sterling several times and disappeared with 40,000 of Sterling’s dollars.  Bailey did find her, but the unexpected (or expected) occurs.  Now, Sterling wants payback, so he coerces Bailey into taking another job for him, one that might cost Jeff his neck or a trip to the gas chamber.

Out of the Past has all the things that marks a movie as film noir, especially the lighting, the dangerous dames, menacing thugs, snappy dialogue, and hard-living hero.  The film actually seems longer than its running time, and that’s good.  The director and screenwriters pack a lot of twists and turns into this film.  It’s beautifully shot, and the dialogue is not only snappy (which might take some getting used to for people not familiar with noir or movies from the 1930’s and 40’s), but it’s also quite witty, sharp, and biting.  The film is engaging and almost compels the viewer to keep watching.

They really don’t make movies like this anymore or movie stars like this.  Robert Mitchum is an electric and magnetic presence, so much so that he almost steals the film from his co-stars.  It’s obvious why every female character in the film wants to disrobe for his Jeff Bailey.  In fact, if it weren’t for Kirk Douglas’ own super-powered film presence, his Whit Sterling couldn’t register as a dangerous adversary for Mitchum’s Bailey.

With nearly ever scene revealing another twist or surprise, Out of the Past is an absolute delight and a must-see for fans of the cast and film noir.  It’s only shortcoming is that the script brushes aside too many characters, and while those characters’ motivations aren’t contrived, they’re turned into a kind of short hand or footnote, although if developed only a little more, they’d enhance the story.  In places, the film lacks meat on its bones and lacks the emotional resonance to fully sell the various relationship triangles.  That said, this is still very entertaining film-noir.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1991 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  National Film Registry

Updated:  Monday, December 09, 2013

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Review: "Crossfire" is a Timeless Social Film (Remembering Robert Ryan)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 123 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Crossfire (1947)
Running time: 86 minutes (1 hour, 26 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Edward Dmytryk
WRITER: John Paxton (based upon the novel The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks)
PRODUCER: Adrian Scott
CINEMATOGRAPHER: J. Roy Hunt (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Harry Gerstad
COMPOSER: Roy Webb
Academy Award nominee

CRIME/DRAMA/FILM-NOIR

Starring: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Paul Kelly, Sam Levene, Jacqueline White, Steve Brodie, George Cooper, George Cooper, William Phipps, Tome Keene (as Richard Powers), Lex Barker, and Marlo Dwyer

The subject of this movie review is Crossfire, the 1947 Film-Noir drama and murder mystery from director, Edward Dmytryk. The film earned a best picture Oscar nomination, the first B-movie to receive that honor. Crossfire is based upon Richard Brooks’ 1945, The Brick Foxhole, which dealt with the murder of a homosexual victim. The victim in the film is Jewish.

Edward Dmytryk’s film Crossfire is an excellent crime drama about murder that resulted from unchecked bigotry. The filmed earned five Oscar® nominations including nods for “Best Picture,” and “Best Director.” In the film, police Captain Finlay (Robert Young) is trying to solve the murder of Joseph Samuels (Sam Levene), a man who befriended a group of soldiers at a bar. At first glance, the perpetrator would seem to be the drunk and depressed Cpl. Arthur Mitchell or “Mitch” (George Cooper), as his friends call him. However, Finlay and an Army Sgt. Peter Keeley (Robert Mitchum) believe Samuels was murdered because he was Jewish, so they set about trying to sniff out the anti-Semite who really committed the crime.

The film is very entertaining, and is also a quite-effective mystery. The characters, even the bit players, are excellent, engaging, and intriguing. Robert Ryan earned an Academy Award nomination for his supporting performance as the slyly genial, yet menacing Montgomery. Quite a bit of the credit for this film’s success must be given to the John Paxton’s adaptation of Richard Brooks’ novel. Paxton’s script (which changed the novel’s murder victim from a gay man to a Jewish man) is filled with witty and effective dialogue, most of it brief, yet efficient enough to color and to establish even the smallest character parts.

Dmytryk, a master film craftsman, gives the entire work a finish and polish that makes the film’s defects charming rather than distracting. Crossfire is a movie that has stayed with me, and I often find myself, for a few moments, remembering it.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1948 Academy Awards: 5 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Robert Ryan), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Gloria Grahame), “Best Director” (Edward Dmytryk), “Best Picture” ((RKO Radio), and “Best Writing, Screenplay” (John Paxton)

1949 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Film from any Source” (USA)

1947 Cannes Film Festival: 1 win: “Best Social Film” (Edward Dmytryk)

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Review: Mitchum Makes "The Night of the Hunter" a Classic (Remembering Robert Mitchum)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 29 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Night of the Hunter (1955) – B&W
Running time: 93 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Charles Laughton
WRITER: James Agee (from the novel Davis Gubb)
PRODUCER: Paul Gregory
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Stanley Cortez
EDITOR: Robert Golden

DRAMA/FILM-NOIR/THIRLLER

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Shelly Winters, Lillian Gish, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce, James Gleason, Evelyn Varden, Peter Graves, and Don Beddoe

The subject of this movie review is The Night of the Hunter, a 1955 American thriller starring the great actor, Robert Mitchum. The film is directed by Charles Laughton, who reportedly also wrote the film’s screenplay, although James Agee is the credited writer. The Night of the Hunter is based upon the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Gubb. The film follows a reverend-turned-serial killer who stalks two children to learn a secret he believes they know.

In this Depression-era tale, self-proclaimed preacher, Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), learns from his cellmate, Ben Harper (Peter Graves), a thief and double murdered condemned to hang from the gallows, that he hid $10,000 in stolen money, and only his two children, John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce), know where the loot is. When Powell gets out of prison, he charms Ben’s weak-minded widow, Willa (Shelly Winters), into marrying him. However, the children have made a pact never to reveal the whereabouts of the money, and the mature-beyond-his-years John stubbornly refuses to give into Powell’s threats of bodily harm lest they give up the money. As Powell stalks them, the children take up refuge with the indomitable Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish), an older woman who takes in abandoned and abused children, and so begins an inevitable test of wills between Harry and Rachel for the fate of the Harper children.

The Night of the Hunter is probably one of the scariest Film-Noir motion pictures you’ll ever see. Haunting, eerie, and dreamlike, its hold on the viewer is as relentless as the title character played superbly, with such gusto, and honest-to-God menace by Robert Mitchum. The wedding night scene in which Harry rebuffs Shelly Winters’ Willa Harper simply and definitively says that Mitchum’s Powell is a total asshole. Actually, it’s at that point Winters’ character really begins to register in this film; before that scene, Willa Harper was extraneous. In Mitchum’s scenes with the children, Powell’s demeanor and dishonest piety mark him as an evil shit. However, when he stalks the Harper kids across cinematographer Stanley Cortez’s otherworldly rural landscapes and its seemingly enchanted river, you know that Powell is an all-too-real human murder, even if he takes on a sort of supernatural aura.

In a sense the film is like a fairy tale, some Brothers Grimm tale that taps into primordial fears and bad dreams – young lambs that find that a ravenous wolf has replaced their parents and now stalks them for a prize. There are superb performances by the child actors. Billy Chapin ably becomes the little man that John Harper must become as he takes on the responsibility of both protecting his sister and his father’s legacy, symbolized by the money that Ben Harper stole specifically to make sure his children didn’t go homeless and hungry. It is with bitter irony that it is that same money is the reason Ben’s children end up homeless and hungry. Sally Jane Bruce mixes cuteness, a precocious confidence, and innocence into a unique mixture that allows her to face Harry Powell, to even sit on his lap on occasion.

Lillian Gish’s Rachel Cooper is God’s voice to as Mitchum’s Powell is the bad spirit; she is his exact opposite when it comes to viewing God. While Powell’s God is a hyper vengeful Old Testament deity who allows a madman to roam about killing his human servants, Gish’s Cooper believes in a God who sends children who will do great things into the world – children who will grow into Kings that will in turn save all God’s children.

Some people may be put off by the film’s theatrical style and staging and its religiosity, but that adds a layer of wonderful metaphors and symbols on director Charles Laughton’s otherwise gritty fable. Carefully and deliberately, he shaped The Night of the Hunter into a true classic in the film thrillers genre.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
1992 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

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