Fri 6 May 2011
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: OUT OF THE PAST (1947).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[15] Comments
OUT OF THE PAST. RKO, 1947. Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Huston, Paul Valentine. Screenplay by Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring) based on his novel Build My Gallows High. Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca. Director: Jacques Tourneur.
I recently took time out to revisit the ultimate film noir, Out of the Past, (RKO, 1947) and the book it was based on, Build My Gallows High (Morrow, 1946) by Geoffrey Homes.
I wasted an awful lot of my precious youth reading other books by Homes, thinking on the strength of Gallows that he must be pretty good. ’Tain’t so. In fact, Homes’ book, which suffers from over-complication and a surfeit of stock characters, is perceptibly inferior to the screenplay he adapted from it.
The film’s plot is still dense and impenetrable, but the characters are more developed and streamlined, the action is well-calculated and surprisingly stark, and though the nature of the story is quite leisurely, momentum never flags, probably thanks to director Jacques Tourneur, who learned early on in his career how to get things moving, and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, who fills the screen with some truly striking imagery.
Interestingly, though the book Build My Gallows High is written in the third person, the movie Out of the Past is very much a first-person thing; Robert Mitchum narrates most of the first half as he recounts the story of why he has to go to Tahoe and pay a call on gang-boss Kirk Douglas. It seems years ago
(WARNING! PLOT DETAILS AHEAD!!)
Mitchum was hired to find Douglas’ runaway mistress Kathy (Jane Greer) but ended up running off with her and living happily ever etc. until she framed him for murder and ran out on him.
Well, we’ve all had relationships like that, and all this is told voice-over by Mitchum till he arrives at Tahoe and finds Kathy there, once again sharing Douglas’ bed.
That, as I say, is the first half. Having brought us up to date,
(WARNING! Continued.)
the movie gets Mitchum embroiled in a blackmail scheme and involved with a second femme fatale, this one named Meta and played by Rhonda Fleming as a less-classy version of Kathy.
For this second half of the film, there is no more voice-over, but Tourneur and Musuraca increasingly photograph Mitchum from behind or in silhouette, and they employ more subjective shots, showing events from his point of view, visually forcing us to identify with the character, though he’s no longer narrating.
And then there’s a moment no one talks about: having been betrayed by Meta, Mitchum makes his way back to her apartment and hides there to wait for her return. The door opens and Kathy comes in, goes to the phone and identifies herself as Meta.
Now logically, there’s no reason for her character to even be in that part of the country, but dramatically, it makes such perfect poetic sense for the two femme fatales to merge into each other that most reviewers don’t even notice.
Mention should also be made — and here it is — of an actor named Paul Valentine [above, on the right] who plays Douglas’s sinister gofer. Smooth, balletic, and lethal, displaying an easy-going manner that never seems less than deadly, it’s an outstanding performance that should have led to bigger things. But alas, did not.
May 6th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
According to AFI, actors who were strongly considered for Robert Mitchum’s role were: Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, Pat O’Brien, John Garfield, and Lex Barker.
I can’t see anybody but Mitchum playing the part. Funny how things work out sometimes.
May 6th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Classic. Practically the “noir of noirs.” Finally found a copy of the 1st edition of BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH last year and look forward to reading the basis for this movie. Don’t care if it’s inferior to the screenplay. I liked FORTY WHACKS and two other of Homes’ books.
May 6th, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Robert Mitchum was, or, one should rather say, as you can still see him doing his work, IS, a fine actor.
Think of ‘Night of the Hunter’, Charles Laughton’s only work as director.
May 6th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Dan,
Although it’s been years since I’ve read “Gallows”, I never got the impression that the book was inferior to the movie. Unfortunately I saw the movie first and anytime this happens to me, I’m always envisioning the movie as I’m reading the book it was made from. The movie is probably my favorite “noir”, bar none. As far as other Homes books, I’ve read almost all of them and don’t remember one I didn’t like. On a recent showing of “Gallows” on TCM the host recounted the story of Mainwaring writing the original screenplay, the studio head didn’t care for it and supposedly hired someone else to rewrite it. Thankfully they decided to go with the original!
May 6th, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Paul
Thanks for bringing up the screenplay, and who wrote it. I don’t know if this is what the guys at TCM were referring to, but I found this on the AFI page also:
“Modern sources also claim that James M. Cain rewrote Homes’s script with Frank Fenton. Fenton is credited as a contributing writer by SAB , but Cain’s contribution has not been confirmed by contemporary sources.”
— Steve
May 7th, 2011 at 11:39 am
Pat O’Brien would not have been appropriate for the part, and Lex Barker just terrible in anything. Bogart, Powell and Garfield would all have been great. Powell especially had a way of bring something unusual to his parts. The depth and style of his performance as Johnny O’Clock make me believe he would have been the best possible choice.
May 7th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
By best, do you mean better than Mitchum? You make a good case for Powell, but while I promise you that I will think it over, I also think I’ll need some more convincing. As for Lex Barker, I thought as a kid he made an awfully good Tarzan. (To clarify, I mean when I was a kid!)
May 7th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Jane Greer is so young in this film, yet so fatal. And of course Mitchum is made for these parts. This and Criss Cross probably are my favorite noirs (no one can top Dan Duryea as the odious male villain).
May 7th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Steve–I do mean better than Mitchum, which in no way means I think Mitchum’s performance wanting.
As for Barker–possibly as Tarzan, but not much else. In any case, Johnny Weissmuller is Tarzan to me. A non-actor with a soul.
May 7th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Dick Powell, for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, never seems to have the weight he needs for the roles he played in detective and noir films. It’s no reflection on him or his acting ability, but maybe let’s put it this way. I’m usually very pleased with his roles in noirish films, but at the same time (and here’s where I can’t quite explain) I feel just a little surprised. But when it comes to Robert Mitchum in the same kinds of roles, I take his performance for granted, like a pair of old comfortable shoes. He’s almost always perfect in the part.
May 7th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Barry
I won’t argue Lex Barker over Johnny Weissmuller, because I can’t. I don’t think I’ve seen Barker as Tarzan since I was a kid, and maybe it’s better to leave it that way.
— Steve
May 7th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Curt
Jane Greer was only 23 when she made OUT OF THE PAST, and it’s probably the film she’s best known for — that and THE BIG STEAL.
— Steve
May 7th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Dick Powell never could convince me he was a thug, a hardboiled tough guy. In OUT OF THE PAST you had to believe this was a reformed evil man trying to do the right thing. Mitchum had that nasty look to him Powell never did.
And I know Powell fought the stereotype hard, but every time I saw or heard him I kept waiting for him to sing. I liked him as radio’s Richard Diamond until the end when he was back as a gentleman with his proper girlfriend and sang to her.
Powell fit my idea of the pre-War gangster, Mitchum was the hardboiled guy in the 50’s you did not want to cross.
May 7th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
Jane Greer was excellent in 1984’s AGAINST ALL ODDS, the remake of OUT OF THE PAST, as the mother of the character she played in the original. I hadn’t noticed Greers’s occasional TV work in the years before 1984, so her lovely and sinister presence in AGAINST ALL ODDS was wonderful surprise to me.
Greer’s and James Woods’ performances were the by far the best reasons to catch AGAINST ALL ODDS, and I say that as someone who admires Jeff Bridge’s work in just about everything.
(Rachel Ward? Uh…let’s just say that as an actress, she was no Jane Greer.)
May 10th, 2011 at 8:08 am
Rachel Ward nearly as pretty as Jane Greer, but the script for AGAINST ALL ODDS was damned near enough to defeat anyone.