This film noir, among so many, has become a new favorite noir right alongside In a Lonely Place, The Big Sleep, Macao (also starring Mitchum), and The Narrow Margin. The amazing unexpected ending, the pitch perfect performances by Mitchum, Greer, and Douglas, the great lighting, or lack of, plus the shadows (of course), and the effectiveness that Tourneur and producer Val Newton employ in dealing with such low-budgets and creating films that surpass most of what comes out of Hollywood today with a budget 100 times the size.
(John Ford-esque shot)
The film starts with what seems to be another film noir that will be told mostly through flashback. Like The Enforcer, for example. The main difference is that while The Enforcer is told through flashback pretty much until the very end, in Out of the Past, the first forty minutes are told through flashback and narrated and the rest hour or so of the film is told in present time and linear with no narration. While this narrative structure was quite common with these detective films of the time, I think it works particularly well for Out of the Past.
(The cinema!)
I say the narrative structure works particularly well for this film because it introduces Jeff’s current love interest first then goes back, as Jeff tells Ann the story, and introduces his second love interest. If the film would’ve been told linear it probably would’ve been too long and the connection between the viewer and Ann wouldn’t be as strong as it is because they might sympathize with Kathie since he was in-love with her first and she seems to still love him.
Another film that came to my mind while watching Out of the Past was The Maltese Falcon. Jeff and Kathie’s relationship seems extremely reminiscent of Spade and Brigid’s relationship. The meeting towards the end of the film between Jeff, Kathie, and Whit is very similar to the meeting towards the end of The Maltese Falcon (or the chapter “The Fall-Guy” in the novel) where Sam sends Brigid away. In this meeting Jeff tries to convince Whit of Kathie’s maliciousness and send her to jail as the “fall-girl” (even though she actually committed the crimes).
(Great use of darkness, shadows, and planes of action)
Another aspect that reminded me of The Maltese Falcon is how similar the conflicts that Spade and Jeff have to face are. For example in the scene when Jeff is hired by Whit to get back the papers that implicate Whit for tax evasion there are many things that come forth like they did in The Maltese Falcon. Jeff and Kathie plan to run away until Jeff notices that things are a little off and realizes that he’s about to be framed for murder. Like in the end of The Maltese Falcon when many viewers questioned Spade’s ethics because they felt like he would’ve accepted the money and stayed with Brigid if the Falcon had been real. So I think Jeff would’ve done the same thing and leave Ann high and dry if he wasn’t being set-up.
When I mentioned the function of shadows in the film earlier, I was thinking about one instance in particular. The best use of shadows, at least in my opinion, in the film is towards the end when Jeff meets with Ann in the forest. Throughout the entirety of this scene Jeff and Ann are both covered by shadows of the trees and it almost looks like they are being punctured by spears or are incredibly trapped in behind some crazy bars. Even though Ann and Jeff seem to be reassuring their love and the scene should feel somewhat peaceful it feels incredibly tense and almost chaotic due to the shadows. The shadows effectively foreshadow the chaos that is to come.
(Beautiful use of shadows in the forest)
The ending of the film is another aspect that completely surprised me and that I loved. At first the audience wanders who Jeff called, then we see the police barricades and Kathie calls Jeff a “dirty double-crossing rat” and shoots him and we see them crash to their demise. Afterwards we see Ann walking out of Jeff’s funeral and she goes to the gas station that he worked with if Jeff was really leaving with Kathie and he says yes. The reason why Jeff’s assistant says this is unclear. Maybe he really thought Jeff was running away with Kathie, maybe he wanted Ann to be able to get over him quicker… The reasons are unclear, which leaves us viewers a sort of open-ended and very tragic ending.
(Cat People, 1942)
Jacques Tourneur is a director who is quickly gaining my immense admiration. I watched Cat People just recently and completely fell in love with it. And now I watch this film that is also incredible. The fact that Tourneur and Newton were working with such strained budgets and creating masterpieces is amazing.
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