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Rating:  -
The Bottom Line:
The quintessential noir, Out of the Past features great photography, an interesting structure, fine performances (Robert Mitchum in particular is perfect) and a downbeat tone; like most noirs it's not really about anything but itself, but it's still a very good movie.
Rating: -
Didn't know what to expect, but a truly great and highly under-rated film. Well worth the purchase!!
Rating:  -
A great movie from RKO Pictures, 1947, and I was between 3 and 4 years old!
Watching this classic and classy movie again I feel both humor and black humor as intended, noir, as the French termed it. Also, watching Mitchum being treated as a pin ball in a machine, soon makes you want to distrust everyone else in the picture, while looking for the frame too.
It was a difficult movie to be in as almost everyone of note ends up dead and only the two people you would least suspect are the only ones having a shot, no pun intended, at a happy ending.
This is truly a magnificent motion picture that will linger with the viewer, one to be watched again and again. I think I first saw the movie on TV in glorius black and white and not a thing has changed over the years.
If you like Mitchum, Greer, and Douglas this is a film for you. Though most of these folks are now dead they have left us a terrific picture from those far gone days.
Semper Fi.
Rating: -
"Out of the Past," a 1947 RKO release directed by Jacques Tourneur of "Cat People" fame, is frequently hailed as the definitive "film noir" by critics, historians, and other "experts." I disagree, although I do find it an excellent film overall. Sure, it stars Robert Mitchum, who, in Roger Ebert's opinion, "embodies the soul of film noir," and he wears a trenchcoat throughout no matter the weather. But from the very first frame, I found it a little short on the atmosphere - the fog and shadows, the rain swept streets, the blinking neon lights - that are the genre's visual style, and the visual style defines film noir more than the dialogue (tough, terse, fatalistic), or the characters (cynical double-crossers or those who become cynical after being double-crossed).
Daylight dominates the early scenes as Mitchum, a former private eye now operating a gas station, is called back to his old profession by Kirk Douglas. Yep, there's a woman involved. There's always a woman involved in noir, this one played by Jane Greer who would join Richard Widmark, another member of the noir hall of fame, in providing support for Jeff Bridges, James Woods, and Rachel Ward in the 1984 remake, "Against All Odds."
Things pick up halfway through as the double-crossing begins in earnest, but though "Out of the Past" has much to recommend it, it is not the best example of this fascinating genre. Try Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" or Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep." Jules Dassin's "Night and the City" is another highlight, as is Lewis Milestone's "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" and Anatole Litvak's "Sorry, Wrong Number." For more modern attempts at revisiting the genre, you could do no better than Dick Richards' "Farewell, My Lovely" with Mitchum a superb Philip Marlowe.
Brian W. Fairbanks
Rating: -
For anyone who has interest in the Film Noir genre of film, this movie is the first one you should see. It is the classic Film Noir that many critics compare others to. It has all of the classic plot lines, the detective, the femme fatale, and the villian. This film actually has a more complex plot than many of the same type like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, and Chinatown; however, it is definitely one of the best.
I won't bore you with repeating the plot line; however, I must say that this is an essential Film Noir classic (and of American film in general).
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