Out of the Past

One of the most cited examples of film noir. Jeff runs a filling station in a small town. He has built a quiet life and is engaged to a local girl. Then someone from his past drives through, sees him, and the past knocks on the door. The story told in flashback is this: Jeff was a detective, and a gambler hired him to find the woman who had shot him and run off with his money. Jeff found her in Mexico. Then he did not bring her back. The film's strength is not its plot but its register. Everyone talks as though already beaten; the dialogue is short, dry and mostly double-edged. The photography is so dominated by shadow that faces are often left half in darkness. Robert Mitchum plays Jeff, Jane Greer the woman, and Kirk Douglas, then early in his career, the gambler. Daniel Mainwaring adapted his own novel; Jacques Tourneur directed. One of the genre's starting points for anyone who likes noir and the dark branch of classical Hollywood. For a viewer expecting a clear story, the plot is deliberately tangled and some connections do not fully settle on a first viewing.