Movie Review: Out Of The Past (1947)

A classic film noir brimming with betrayal, murder, theft and manipulation, Out Of The Past toys with desolate drama driven by the desperation of the doomed.

A brooding tough guy called Joe (Paul Valentine) shows up at a middle-of-nowhere California gas station looking for the owner Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum). Joe wants Jeff to travel to Lake Tahoe for a meeting with Joe's boss, shady businessman Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). Jeff agrees and takes along girlfriend Ann Miller (Virginia Huston). On the drive to the meeting Jeff recounts in flashback his chequered history with Whit. As a private detective Jeff and his partner Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie) were hired by Whit to find his girlfriend Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) after she shot him four times and fled with $40,000 of his money.

Whit: You just sit and stay inside yourself. You wait for me to talk. I like that.
Jeff: I never found out much listening to myself.

Jeff found Kathie in Mexico, they fell in love, and escaped from the clutches of Whit. But when Fisher stumbled upon them living in hiding, Kathie shot and killed Fisher and promptly fled, leaving Jeff to deal with the mess of his former partner's dead body. Back in the present, Jeff enters the meeting and is stunned to find Kathie back with Whit, having returned to him after the Fisher killing. Whit appears friendly enough towards Jeff, and offers him an assignment to recover financial files being used by lawyer Leonard Eels (Ken Niles) to blackmail Whit. Jeff suspects a trap, and soon finds himself in multiple layers of trouble as the bodies pile up and his past catches up with him.

Jeff, narrating: And then I saw her, coming out of the sun, and I knew why Whit didn't care about that forty grand.

Among the most perfect examples of film noir, Out Of The Past luxuriates in slow smoke, bad intentions, illicit affairs, vivid shadows and razor sharp dialogue dripping with cynicism. The mood is unrelentingly dark and suspicious, the action hurtling towards only bad outcomes. Jeff narrates his own story with the tired resignation of a man who knows the game is up once the ghost of the past, in the form of Joe, shows up at his gas station. Nothing good can happen after that.

Director Jacques Tourneur packs a highly complex story into 97 minutes of grim pessimism. With pacing that accelerates as Jeff's destiny spirals ever downwards, the film's final 30 minutes do feel rushed, as the Daniel Mainwaring script races towards an incomprehensible cliff, but just manages to hang on as Jeff gets sucked into the vortex where Kathie, Whit, and Fisher all see him as a step-stool towards something else.

Kathie: You know, you're a curious man.
Jeff: You're gonna make every guy you meet a little bit curious.
Kathie: That's not what I mean. You don't ask questions. You don't even ask me what my name is.
Jeff: All right, what's your name?
Kathie: Kathie.
Jeff: I like it.
Kathie: Or where I come from?
Jeff: I'm thinkin' about where we're going.
Kathie: Don't you like it in here?
Jeff: I'm just not ready to settle down.
Kathie: Shall I take you somewhere else?
Jeff: You're going to find it very easy to take me anywhere.

Every time Jeff thinks that he's dodged one crisis he finds himself surfacing in a muddier swamp of trouble, and it all stems from falling in love with the wrong girl at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Kathie is a most dangerous femme fatale, and Jeff is the tragic hero with an inability to resist her seductive charms. Both are scrapping for more than what they deserve, in the vain hope that fate will give them a break and they can get away with undeserved contentment.

Kathie: Jeff, we've been wrong a lot, and unlucky a long time. I think we deserve a break.
Jeff: We deserve each other.

Robert Mitchum is perfectly depressing as Jeff, his economy of words and actions portraying a man allowing life to happen to him. Douglas brings menacing intensity to Whit, his toothy smile not trying to hide the arrogance that comes with illicit riches. And Jane Greer defines the irresistibly attractive manipulator, Greer exuding the intelligent sex appeal used by Kathie to confuse the weak and snare a man who can potentially help her get away from Whit. She is wrong, as is everyone else looking for a happy ending. In Out Of The Past, one mistake a long time ago is all it takes to condemn the future.

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Movie Review: Against All Odds (1984)

An overcomplicated romantic drama with neo-noir elements, Against All Odds packs way too much plot around an unconvincing love triangle, but also manages to sprinkle some excellent moments that hint at what could have been a better movie.

Veteran Los Angeles Outlaws footballer Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges) is reaching the end of his career. Injury prone and considered too old, he is cut from the team, despite having the sympathy of coach Hank Sully (Alex Karras). Deep in debt, Brogan gets no help from his lawyer friend Steve Kirsch (Saul Rubinek) and so accepts an assignment from slimy gambling czar and nightclub owner Jake Wise (James Woods). Wise wants Brogan to find his lover Jessie Wyler (Rachel Ward), who took off on him and stole $50,000 in the process.

Jessie is the daughter of Grace (Jane Greer), the owner of the Outlaws. Grace is married to political fixer Ben Caxton (Richard Widmark), who is working behind the scenes with Kirsch to grease the gears and secure approval for Grace's coveted mountainside development project. Brogan tracks down Jessie in Mexico, and they become lovers, hiding out in the jungle and ignoring Jake's ever more frantic phone messages. Jake finally dispatches Sully to find both Brogan and Jessie, triggering unexpected bloodshed and a return to Los Angeles, as the sordid worlds of football gambling and political corruption collide in a frenzy of blackmail, back-stabbing and violence.

Against All Odds contains several memorable highlights that belong in a better movie. Terry and Jessie make steamy love in a Mayan temple, causing the walls to sweat. Kid Creole and the Coconuts perform the smoothly corrupt My Male Curiosity in Jake's nightclub. Terry and Jake engage in a hair raising, high speed Porsche versus Ferrari duel on the road, weaving in and out of traffic in an old fashioned, dim-witted mano-a-mano confrontation, among the best crazy car chases put to film.

And the closing shot strikes gold. Director Taylor Hackford sustains a long hold on Jessie as she stands on her future and stares longingly as her past leaves her behind, enhanced by Phil Collins' legendary Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), one of the finest tragic tunes from the films of the 1980s.

But a lot also goes wrong in this movie, a loose updating of 1947's Out Of The Past. There are too many plot threads blowing in the wind and competing for attention. Jake, Kirsch, Grace, Sully and Caxon from a dense nexus of evil-doers, engaged in political corruption, illegal gambling, match fixing, and greedy developers outmanoeuvring environmental activists. With too much going on, the love and lust elements take a back seat and the second half of the film, back in Los Angeles, spirals out of control. Terry gets involved in ridiculous situations to create artificial thriller elements, Jessie's actions are irrational, seemingly manufactured to needlessly prolong a damaged love triangle.

The film finally begins to teeter on the edge of a parody rather than an homage to the film noir genre. Bloodied dead bodies are stashed in bathrooms, guard dogs growl, a minor corporate secretary (Swoosie Kurtz) suddenly reemerges to help Terry break into a safe, guns are waved all over the place, and James Woods as Jake Wise descends into manic intensity mode, blood vessels about to pop as both his love life and corrupt business empire are threatened.

James Bridges and Rachel Ward do generate sustained heat, although Ward's acting is simply not up to par. Her delivery is wooden, almost amateurish, and except for that final shot, she struggles to generate any genuine emotion. Bridges is better, frequently shirtless and more believable as a slightly dim football player with the rug of his life suddenly pulled out from below him. The Eric Hughes script simply forgets to demonstrate any source of attraction between Jessie and Jake, leaving part of the romantic conflict woefully vacant, and reducing James Woods' role to that of slimeball extraordinaire. Richard Widmark and Jane Greer (who starred in Out Of The Past) add welcome veteran sophistication to the supporting cast.

While not exactly a car wreck, Against All Odds is more a lingering curiosity than a good film. There are moments that deserve standing and staring, but also a lot of nondescript debris cluttering the scene.

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