The movie actually opens a few years later in Bridgeport, California, a small town tucked away in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where Mitchum now owns a gas station. But all of this-the mobster, the girl, the killing-is told in flashback: This is the past out of which Mitchum's destiny will come calling for him. When he does, Greer shocks Mitchum by killing the partner and vanishing into the night. But the mobster who originally hired Mitchum (an impossibly sleek and handsome young Kirk Douglas) sends Mitchum's old partner to find them. It exceeds its genre even as it typifies it.Īfter the private eye (Mitchum) finds the girlfriend (Jane Greer at her most poutily seductive) in Mexico, the two of them run away to San Francisco together. But Out of the Past is more than just an exemplary noir. It's true that the film contains a near-encyclopedic array of the genre's devices-the private eye, the femme fatale, the labyrinthine plot, the tough, smart dialogue, the story told in flashback and voiceover, the cinematic interplay of shadow and light. (See the Home Movies List, below.) The film that made Robert Mitchum a star, Out of the Past is often described as the quintessential noir. The film is Jacques Tourneur's masterpiece Out of the Past, made in 1947 and at last released on DVD by Warner along with four other classic noirs. Is there a moment in film noir that better captures a hero's fall from grace? The woman who is no good, the man who can't help himself, the existential choice that seals both their fates-it's all there on the luminous sand. But I didn't take anything." She moves closer: "Don't you believe me?" "Baby," he responds, plummeting into another kiss, "I don't care." I didn't know anything except how much I hated him. They kiss, and she pleads with him not to take her back: "I didn't know what I was doing. He's found her here, in Acapulco, and fallen for her. He's the private eye sent to bring her back. She's a mobster's girlfriend, who shot him and absconded with $40,000. The Kid salutes Jeff's name on the gas station placard and smiles.A woman and a man sit on a moonlit beach. The Kid nods, "Yes." Wordlessly, Ann returns to Jim, and they drive off together in his patrol car. Was Jeff going away with Kathie, Ann asks. Ann walks across the street to Jeff's gas station in order to speak with Jeff's deaf and mute attendant, known only as "The Kid" ( Dickie Moore). In the final scene, Jeff's girlfriend Ann Miller ( Virginia Huston) is leaving the funeral on the arm of policeman Jim ( Richard Webb), who has been in love with Ann since they were children. The police then open fire on the car, killing both Kathie and Jeff, and the car plows head-on into the roadblock-a truck and a police car. She pulls a gun out of her briefcase and shoots him in the abdomen. ![]() ![]() "You dirty, double-crossing rat!", Kathie screams at Jeff. Suddenly, they come up against a police roadblock. Jeff agrees to go with her because "we deserve each other." While Kathie is upstairs packing her bags and getting some money, Jeff makes a phone call, then they drive off together to meet a plane that Kathie has waiting. What she really wants, however, is to go back to Mexico and start all over.with Jeff. Kathie announces to Jeff that she's calling the shots now or she'll testify that it was he who killed them all: Fisher, Eels, Joe, and Whit. When Jeff returns to Whit's house, he finds Whit lying dead on the living room floor. After Jeff leaves, Whit slaps Kathie and tells her that, from now on, she's going to play everything his way or he'll kill her. He also informs Whit that Joe is dead, that Joe killed Eels, and that Kathie killed Fisher, things that Whit seems to know nothing about. ![]() Jeff makes a deal with Whit: the tax records for the affidavit.
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