Out of the Past (1947)
QFS No. 172 - The invitation for April 9, 2025
I can’t quite remember how this movie made it on to my radar, but I have heard good things. And you can’t possibly go wrong with two of the greatest faces and square jaws in movie history – Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. What else do I know about this movie? It’s a 1940s noir thriller and so it probably contains a dame, low key jazz saxophone or horn playing, fog, copious amounts of smoking, inky night scenes, and at least one trench coat. (I cheated on that last one and saw a still from the picture.)
Join us in discussing Out of the Past!
Out of the Past (1947) Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Reactions and Analyses:
Movies, especially ones with twisty noir-like plots, thrive when they contain moments that make the audience gasp. They reflect the filmmaker’s ability to keep the viewer guessing, to fill the story with surprises and the unexpected, which is what give a story it’s life and vibrancy.
Out of the Past (1947) had at least one if not more such gasp-inducing moments. The scene in question happens about half way through the film. We learn in a long-narrated flashback that Jeff (Robert Mitchum) had fallen in love with the woman he was supposed to track down, mobster Whit Sterling’s (Kirk Douglas) erstwhile girlfriend Kathie (Jane Greer), who had fled after shooting Whit and stole $40,000 from him. Jeff and Kathie, now lovers, go on the run from Acapulco back to California but were eventually tracked down by Jeff’s ex-partner Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie) now working for Whit. Kathie shoots and kills the henchman at their mountain cabin hideaway and flees, leaving Jeff alone knowing that the story of Kathie taking the money from Whit is true, but also now alone, abandoned by his lover, forced to bury the body.
Jeff (Robert Mitchum) learns the hard way that it’s ill advised to fall in love with the woman you’re tracking down (Kathie, played by Jane Greer) at the behest of a wealthy gangster.
We haven’t gotten to the part that induced gasps. This entire portion of Jeff’s backstory is told through flashback, narrated by Jeff to his new lover Ann (Virginia Huston), an innocent small-town girl in Bridgeport, Calif. where Jeff has presumably attempted to lead a quiet life running a gas station. At this point in the story, Jeff has been met by one of Whit’s goons Joe Stefanos (Paul Valentine) who drove through this town on a whim and serendipitously saw Jeff’s name on the gas station. He more or less orders Jeff to go see Whit in Lake Tahoe.
At this point in the story, we don’t know whether Whit is aware that Jeff ran away with Kathie or did he believe that Jeff simply not find Kathie and also then never showed up to collect the rest of his paycheck. Jeff believes either Whit doesn’t know about his relationship with the ganster’s ex-girlfriend or Whit is upset that Jeff skedaddled. Either way, Jeff goes to Whit to clear things up and get on with his life with Ann.
Jeff arrives at Whit’s (Kirk Douglas) home and the other shoe is about to drop, isn’t it?
Whit is just eating this up.
He's brought into Whit’s beautiful lakeside estate and Whit is all charm, no real hint that he’s upset with Jeff at all. In fact, he wants to hire Jeff again. Which is unusual – so this is probably all a setup to something terrible or violent to happen to him.
And in a way it is – they sit down for a fancy lunch and who shows up? Kathie. The woman who tried to kill Whit, ran away, fell in love with the man who was supposed to bring her in, Jeff (or so we thought!), who then shot and killed a man, and ran away from Jeff. She came back to Whit? Why?!
Jeff is blindsided by Kathie’s return - as we, the audience, are meant to be as well.
It’s such a terrific moment in the film, a true surprise – at least for me, where I let out an unexpected gasp. From our discussion, several members of our QFS group did the same.
The plot, twisting and turning throughout, is what makes this and other noir films compelling. What elevates the genre is when the film says something about the human condition – greed, betrayal, love. Love features at the center of these twists. Does Kathie love either of the men or is she playing them? Who does she really love? She seems sincere in her love for Jeff but left him once and can she be trusted now when she says she had no choice but to return to Whit? After all, she lied about the stolen money. And does Jeff love the passionate Kathie or is her true love the innocent Ann?
Jeff appears to love Ann (Virginia Huston) but will he fall for Kathie again once she’s reentered his life?
In the end, Kathie reveals her true self as does Jeff. Jeff plans on turning her in and they barrel towards the authorities. Kathie, calls Jeff a dirty rat and swerves the car as the bullets rain down upon them, killing them both. Ann, in the final moments of the film, asks the mute teenager at the gas station attendant and Jeff’s friend (Dickie Moore) if Jeff was planning on leaving with Kathie or turning him in, and he signals that they were going to run away - which is a kind lie. It feels like his intention was to turn Kathie in and return to Ann in the small town, but the kid spared Ann the heartbreak of a lost lover.
Jeff, trench coat on, marches up to confront Kathie.
The twisting nature of the story, allows for the various plot holes and logic gaps to be forgiven or not even noticed until later. For example, what are the chances that Whit ends up in Lake Tahoe, not but an hour or so from Bridgeport where Jeff is hiding away with a new lift? To where did Jeff send the all-important tax documents that end up being not important at all? Is it possible to kill someone like that with a fishing pole?
Moments before perhaps the greatest fishing pole murder of all time (in self defense, of course).
All of this becomes secondary to the Jacques Tourneur captivatingly efficient storytelling, the terrific cast, and the utterly perfect whip-bang dialogue found in the best of noir. The lines come so quickly and with such percussive ease that it’s hard to gather them all in. Here’s just one of many classics, when Whit has found Jeff and “invited” him to his place in Lake Tahoe before the reveal that Kathie’s returned. He’s about to blackmail Jeff into hiring him again.
Whit: Well, you told me about your business. Mine is a little more precarious and I earn considerably more.
Jeff: So I've heard.
Whit: So has the government.
Jeff: Well, this may sound ridiculous, but you could pay 'em.
Whit: Oh, that would be against my nature.
All of this makes for just the type of great noir – the kind of twisty, fun, compelling movie - you can just wrap yourself in and permit all the plot holes and logic leaps to just fade into the background. Jeff, for all of Mitchum’s hard-boiled square-jawed machismo, never once shoots or kills anyone in the film. The bodies all fall around him – literally, as Joe is felled by a fishing pole – with Kathie having by far the highest body count.
Jeff and Kathie after she’s shot and killed another.
Kathie finally did it - killed Whit.
Trench coats, fasting-talking, femme fatales, and a truly fantastic amount of smoking makes for the perfect noir mood in any picture. But what makes it endure and why we should continue to watch Out of the Past are the moments of the unexpected, the turns in the story that keep you guessing and maintains the joy of watching a film that knows how to entertain.
A heroic about of smoking is one of the more enduring aspects of Out of the Past.
