Out of the Past

Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur 1947, is a very interesting American film noir. The film is in black and white and focuses on lots of shadows and the pure expression of the characters. Jeff Bailey/Jeff Markham, played by Robert Mitchum, owns a gas station in a small town and is shown as someone who keeps to himself and is somewhat mysterious. A past business partner arrives at the gas station where he works and tells him that his old boss, Whit Sterling (played by Kurt Douglas), wants to talk to him about an opportunity that has come up. Jeff immediately begins to question what is going on and begins to tell his girlfriend, Ann Miller (played by Virginia Huston) about his past business endeavours, the film begins to do flashbacks narrated by Jeff as he describes the events that have led up to him owning the gas station in the small town.

As the film progresses Jeff soon discovers that Whit is setting up a trap for him, but he soon outsmarts him and ends up returning home to Ann and the rest of his friends in the small town. In the end of the film Kathie (the woman Whit asks him to find because she stole $40,000 from him) ends up dying. This last scene exemplifies what the idea of film noir tries to embody; many times there is a "femme fatale" type of character who ends up dying at the end and in many cases plays a type of villianess. Film noir helped to expand the types of roles women played, they shifted from wholesome supporting roles behind men to dark roles that many times defined the movie.

Overall Out of the Past was a very interesting film and washed away many stereotypes of the time. Overall my favorite character was "The Kid", played by Dickie Moore. "The Kid" was deaf and not many people gave him any respect except for Jeff. They undermined his abilities and assumed that since he could not hear that he did not know what was going on. Quite the opposite was in fact true. "The Kid" played a vital role in protecting Jeff against Whit and his men and also was a very interesting character to have in a film from the late 40's.