Out Of The Past (DVD)

Out of the Past, directed by genre-master Jacques Tourneur, was released in 1947 and was Robert Mitchum's first film since being released from prison after his notorious 'pot bust' (that was mirrored in a scene in Curtis Hansen's LA Confidential). Originally released in the UK as 'Build my Gallows High', after a line in the movie, where Mitchum drawls calmly to femme fatale Jane Greer "build my gallows high, baby" (admittedly it is also ...
...in general.

Out of the Past is the most fitting title for the film, as it encapsulates the film in four very neat words. As we enter an average Joe (and name of the character is literally Joe!) wanders through a small town, and what does he see on a gas station sign but the name of an old friend that he's lost touch with: Jeff Bailey. Immediately, as he sits listening, drinking coffee and cracking wise to the waitress in the diner ... more

Out of the Past, directed by genre-master Jacques Tourneur, was released in 1947 and was Robert Mitchum's first film since being released from prison after his notorious 'pot bust' (that was mirrored in a scene in Curtis Hansen's LA Confidential). Originally released in the UK as 'Build my Gallows High', after a line in the movie, where Mitchum drawls calmly to femme fatale Jane Greer "build my gallows high, baby" (admittedly it is also the name of the book…), Out of the Past is arguably Mitchum's greatest film, and also the highest point in Tourneur's occasionally brilliant career. No wonder that the title of Mitchum's biography is also a line taken directly from the film: "Baby, I don't care", which seems to sum up both Mitchum's character in the film and acting style in general.

Out of the Past is the most fitting title for the film, as it encapsulates the film in four very neat words. As we enter an average Joe (and name of the character is literally Joe!) wanders through a small town, and what does he see on a gas station sign but the name of an old friend that he's lost touch with: Jeff Bailey. Immediately, as he sits listening, drinking coffee and cracking wise to the waitress in the diner across the street, effortlessly pumping her for information she's not aware she is giving, we know Joe is trouble. We know this does not bode well for Jeff Bailey. Needless to say, Jeff Bailey is Robert Mitchum. Joe, played effortlessly by genre regular Paul Valentine, wanders across to the gas station to find a young man changing a tire. Calling out to the young man he is ignored. To grasp his attention Joe lights a cigarette and in true Film Noir style flicks the spent match at the kid. Only the kid is deaf and dumb - and as we will learn - clearly in receipt of information concerning Bailey's past. It seems both ironic and fitting that the only character originally trusted with Bailey's secrets should be unable to utter them.

Cut to:

Bailey steps forward from the lake, leans against the tree and beside his girl, Ann Miller (played with the proper blandness of the 'good girl' by Virginia Huston). She lights his cigarette as she asks him questions about his past. As we, the audience, link together the title of the film, the stranger Joe, and Ann's questions to Bailey, we immediately feel, despite the calm lakeside atmosphere, things are about to change, even as Bailey points towards a cove and tells Ann, in answer to her questions that he wants to build a house there, live in it and with Ann. Ann is clearly pleased, even if in the first scene there is the 'good man', Jim, who considers Ann to be his. A policeman and bland we understand why she attracted to Bailey and without realising it supports him.

Bailey looks over his shoulder and there stands the kid, signing to Bailey of the news of Joe's arrival.

Like most of the best Film Noirs, wheels have been set in motion towards a tragedy of fate. Fate rules Film Noir and so we now fate will rule Bailey's future, but how and why we are currently uncertain.

Cut to:

Joes, cautious, asks how far the kid can read lips, "I'll ask him someday" Bailey quips, Mitchum nearly so calm his eyes are closing. Joe gets to the point, Whit wants to see him. We know nothing of Whit but there is something unspoken between them. The Story.

And so The Story has to be told. As The Story always does.

Cut to:

Bailey honks his horn outside Ann's home, where she lives with her parents. She hurries outside, her parent shouting after her how they disapprove of Bailey.

They Drive.

"You told me once I'd have to tell you…" Bailey begins, as Ann lights him a cigarette.

Flashback to:

"The Story"

Bailey is settled in a chair, nonchalance personified. Injured and behind a desk Kirk Douglas' Whit Sterling, approves and tells his story. Kathie, his girlfriend Kathie Moffet has run out on him. She's run out on him with forty gees. She's run out on him with forty gees and taken several shots at him. Several shots she made good. Bailey, a private eye, has just gotta find her. But not, repeat not, his oily partner, who wanders on the perimeter eyeing up the possibility of big money. Joe, indignant, mouths off about the papers. Whit has 'shot himself polishing a cat pistol', they declaim.

Bailey catches a plane south to Mexico and all the way to Acapulco. Bailey half sleeps in cafes drinking beer waiting to find her and in steps Jane Greer's Kathie. Dark shadows cover the entrance of the bar and we see her silhouette then Kathie steps into the light. Bailey is her light and her past is all shrouded in darkness. And so begins the doomed romance that must, of course, flare up - how could Bailey not fall for Kathie and her him. Expectation and recognition in the audience flare up as we can see the future shaping before our mind's eye - we recall the opening, we recall Joe, we recall Whit wanting to see Bailey bad.

Yes. We know the future, even if we don't know the shape it will take. We're watching Film Noir; we're expecting tragedy.

Thus Bailey tells the rest of The Story to Ann. Acapulco moves to San Francisco; we watch two nervous illicit lovers as they pass their time in out of the way places. We watch as they move to more traditional past times.

Coincidence is the core of tragedy, the moment of unstoppable, unutterable coincidence. The force of fate. Avaricious, oily Jack Fisher, Bailey's old partner, spots them at race track. Bailey and Kathie split. Bailey lets Fisher follow him then splits, off to meet Kathie.

"Only he followed her"

What can a good Femme Fatale do but kill Jack Fisher?

Cut to the Present.

Bailey before a big house on the lake. The house belongs to Whit Sterling. Inside the house is Whit, is Joe, is Kathie. Each with their own deceptions and plans for the future, each with their own revenge planned. Bailey at their centre is going to be betrayed but by whom are how, well, that I won't spoil. Now we move in real time… forward towards fate.

In terms story, is Out of the Past unique? Of course not, but it is the very epitome of Film Noir. Like the best Film Noirs of the forties, Out of the Past relies heavily on the stylistic conventions of German Expressionistic film making of the twenties and Nicholas Musuraca was about the best in Hollywood at capturing that and in Out of the Past Musuraca's photography is glorious. Musuraca shot most of Tourneur's best films (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie - as well as Mark Robson's brilliant The Seventh Victim) and his work on Out of the Past is one of the major factors why it is such a great film. His crisp use of matte black and blinding white in Mexico, his soft delicacy when shooting the countryside; the city, San Francisco, is filled with patches of light and swathes of darkness that mask faces, characters and of course reflects the nature of the characters, the duplicity and the hidden. This is an important point as unlike the Seventies (think of films like Deliverance) in Forties cinema the City was considered a corrupt and depraved place whilst the countryside was made by god, natural and filled with good honest hardworking people (like the characters of Ann and Jim). No wonder Ann's parents disapprove of Bailey. Bailey is identified with the city, thus he brings its values, it underlying depravity and lack of true with it. He corrupts the innate goodness of the countryside by his very presence there. Noticeably, Mitchum's performance changes little in terms style, so that he neither seems more or less honest in the country or in the city; we can consider Bailey ultimately a good man laid low by the city, by mistaken love and peoples' inability to forgive and the need for vengeance. Kathie says early on that "Whit can really hate" and Whit does, though in a calm, purposeful manner. On taking revenge on Bailey he attempts to also save himself.

The city is filmed claustrophobically; scenes are broken down into close-ups and tight shots that show us only what we need to see. In the country Tourneur allows us wider images, he provides us with panoramas, shooting long takes where the characters are allowed to express themselves slowly, such as Ann and Bailey when we first meet them. The country is a sanctuary. Bailey, even later in the film, when in danger of harm, is always strangely safe in the country. Nothing terrible can be done to him there. It is too honest a place to cause him any violence.

At the core of Out of the Past is a man trapped between two women who love him, Ann and Kathie. Each loves him in their own way. Ann in her country way: honest, giving, trusting and forgiving. Kathie, personifying the city is calculating, she is willing to use and abandon him - she loves him selfishly and as such can only bring harm to Bailey. It is from this triangle, though the two women never meet, that much of the films fatalism is drawn. Pulled one way, then another, Bailey is at times almost passive though towards the end some of his passivity seems to derive from a sense of self-disgust, at a wish to allow Ann an honest life (even if that means with the terminally dull Jim).

As with most Film Noir, as much as we may be meant to 'disapprove' of Kathie, she is also the more fascinating of the two. She is an active character, whereas Ann allows life to flow along about her to carry her away. Kathie is a more modern woman, though in the forties this took the form of aggression and thus society dictated that she be punished for this. Nevertheless, as played by Jane Greer, she has considerable screen presence, and we recognise beneath the surface that the character of Kathie is trying to survive in a society that will not accept her whatever she does. Kathie does not want to be a wallflower; she wants to control her own life and her own destiny. And if anything the character with the most control over her destiny, and thus fate, in the whole film is Kathie. If she had lived in the country perhaps she might have reached a balance, but corrupted by the city and foreign places (Mexico) there's no answer for her but to be punished.

The word classic is so often bandied about and most often used with a total lack of appropriateness. Out of the Past is certainly a film that has earned the epithet. It feels fresh even today; it captures the right tone and casts a light on post WWII American society. This is where Film Noir often excels, it encapsulates social values despite most films falling very heavily into genre conventions. Out of the Past certainly does this, better than most. Mitchum's performance is a paragon of his work and reminds you that though he never really seemed to do anything that he could act. And then some. Greer, Douglas and Valentine all fit their characters expertly. Something of a lowkey film, Out of the Past works because of this. It is drenched with doom and doomed romance. So rich with presence and mood and tone, Tourneur and Musuraca fill each frame with symbolism and meaning. But that's just window dressing in a way. Style and substance meet; the film is tense, the plot is not labyrinthine but unusually coherent - often Film Noir got a little incoherent (famously in The Big Sleep no one, writers and director included, knew who had killed the Chauffeur!). It fits together into a perfect package, short, taut; almost mercilessly so. A brilliant film made by masters of their craft.
 

...less