Review of Out of the Past (1947) by Greg P — 29 May 2008

A beloved classic in the minds of many, but I was left underwhelmed. To anyone familiar with the 2005 movie "A History of Violence", the plot in this one can definitely be seen as an influence.

Jeff Bailey (Mitchum) plays a small town gas station attendant who with his girlfriend Meta, hopes to live a normal life, but his past abruptly catches up to him. We are shown that years back he was an investigator who, while tracking down mobster Whit's mistress, ended up falling in love instead.

Things don't go all that peachy however and he tries to escape the lifestyle, but one last job is requested from Whit, and he reluctantly agrees. From there opens a pandora's box of two timing and double crossing.

This movie starts out simple enough, but weaves increasingly complicated and it was quite hard to follow exactly. It's not flawed by any means in it's storyline, because everything connects and there are no holes, but this just wasn't exactly my preference to film-noir.

Mitchum was good as always, the supporting cast did well, and the dialogue is held in high regard, so these things have made it a classic over the years, but I like my film-noirs more sinister and dark a la Fritz Lang's "M" and even Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" to an extent.