How noir is Out of the Past? The movie gives us not one, but two femmes fatale in Jane Greer and Rhonda Fleming; Robert Mitchum drolly narrates as a former private eye drawn back into a sticky case he thought he left behind; director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) casts it all in sharp expressionistic shadows; and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring, adapting his own novel, delivers a fatalistic ending that gives Chinatown a run for its money. Oh, and as a bonus there’s a young Kirk Douglas, in only his third role, grinning from the corners as a crime boss pulling the strings. Mitchum holds the screen in the palm of his hand without appearing to even try, while he and Greer deliciously deliver Mainwaring’s wry repartee. “That’s not the way to win,” Mitchum’s Jeff tells Greer’s Kathie over a game of roulette. When she asks, “Is there a way to win?,” he responds, “There’s a way to lose more slowly.” In film noir, the least corrupt character in a thoroughly corrupt world still loses everything—a fate that Out of the Past details in grand style.
(3/21/2026)
