The Locket

John Brahm's 1946 film has one of the most complicated narrative structures in noir: the story is told as a flashback inside a flashback inside another flashback. Nancy, played by Laraine Day, uses every man she meets, and the source of it is traced to a locket she was blamed for taking in childhood. The film starts at the outcome and moves backwards layer by layer, each layer shaking the reliability of the one before. This is one of Robert Mitchum's early roles, as a painter who knows the woman best and is understood least. Brahm's gothic lighting, and how strongly the vogue for psychoanalysis shaped 1940s Hollywood, are visible throughout. Reducing the explanation to a single childhood trauma looks simplistic now, but the nerve of the structure still impresses. Who it's for: viewers interested in noir, in classic Hollywood films that play with narrative structure, and in early Robert Mitchum. Who it's not for: anyone who will struggle to follow nested flashbacks, or bothered by the convenience of the psychological explanation.