Out of the Past (1947)

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Best movie ever!

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

What a movie great story and stars dependable quality writing just sit enjoy and don't analysise

Starting off a review by admitting having no idea who the director of the film you're about to write a review of is certainly far from ideal. Yet it hardly matters if Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas are the actors. The film was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring (under a pen name) from his novel Build my Gallows High (also written under a pen name).A retired private eye runs a gas station in a small town, where he leads a quiet life under the phoney name of Jeff Bailey. He spends his leisure time fishing and whit a young girl he wants to marry. Unexpectedly, he receives the visit of and old friend who told him that Whit Sterling, a boss in the mob, wants to see him. Bailey is forced to explain to his soon-to-be-wife his shady past in a very long flashback: he was hired by Sterling to look for his lover, Kathie Moffet, who had run away with a considerable sum of money, 40.000 dollars, managed to find her in Acapulco but as he fell in love with her, they decided to flee from Sterling and go to live in San Francisco. However, the woman fled again leaving him alone after the dearth of the former Bailey¡s mate in business, who had discovered his whereabouts. When the flash-back finishes Bailey is drawn back to Sterling and starts to suspect that he longs to take revenge on him over what happened.Thus the two plotlines are merged into one. Bailey, back to his usual business, is pulled back into a world he knows as well as the back of his hand. As in any good Noir picture, there are twists and turns where they are needed, sometimes in the shape of a gun coming out of a raincoat pocket, sometimes it's just betraying and stabbing in the back. All that would account to almost nothing if the movie hadn't had Robert Mitchum in in. Hi is Noir. His height lends him the ability to scan a murder scene as if he were a owl up on a tree branch; his eyes are the eyes of a marble statue.

I first saw Out of the Past in a screening in Austin at UT. It looks so unbelievably good projected. I've since watched it every few years on TCM or DVD, and just watched it again after listening to the Out of the Past Podcast's episode on the film, and got even more out of it this time. That's what makes it a classic and a pleasure. My favorite Mitchum movie and maybe Kirk Douglas as well. My favorite noir.

I thought the movie Out of the Past was a a pretty great movie for the time it was made in. I thought that the sounds and various tempos, and moods helped this movie to be an intriguing movie.I thought the people playing the characters in this movie were very good.It seems as though the cast worked together pretty well. Every character interacted with one another. This helped the movie with its very dramatic scenes. Jane Greer as Kathie Moffat was a very interesting character because she had all of the men falling for her. It was like she had them all wrapped around her finger.The movie has a very dramatic mood in my opinion, and that made it interesting to watch in my opinion. The director ( Jacques Tourneur) used great camera shots. The shot where the trees in the forest, to the shots of San Francisco were full of shadows at night. The cinematography of Nicholas Musuraca is amazing. I thought it was crazy that most of the characters were smoking. It showed that they were scene as tough in my opinion. Its weird to think that most movies now that are made do not show anyone smoking. It just shows how different a few decades can make a difference.Overall, I thought this movie was good. I would rate it a 7/10.