Product description

Out Of The Past [DVD] [1947]

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Average customer rating: 4.5

Binding : DVD
EAN : 5050582434576
Label : Universal Pictures UK
Manufacturer : Universal Pictures UK
Publisher : Universal Pictures UK
Release date : 2007-02-12
Title : Out Of The Past [DVD] [1947]
Actor : Array
Audience rating : Parental Guidance
Format : Array
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Original release date : 1947-01-01
Region code : 2
Running time : 93
Studio : Universal Pictures UK
Theatrical releaseDate : 1947

Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Build my gallows high, baby"--just one of the quintessentially noir sentiments expressed by Robert Mitchum in this classic of the genre. Mitchum, in absolute prime, sleepy-eyed form, relates a complicated flashback about getting hired by gangster Kirk Douglas to find femme fatale Jane Greer. The chain of film noir elements--love, money, lies--drags Mitchum into the lower depths. Director Jacques Tourneur gets the edgy negotiations between men and women as exactly right as he gets the inky shadows of the noir landscape (even the sunlit exteriors are fraught with doubt). This is Mitchum in excelsis, with his usual laid-back cool laced with great dialogue and tragic foreshadowing. As for his co-star, James Agee immortally opined that Jane Greer "can best be described, in an ancient idiom, as a hot number." Remade in 1984, unhappily, as iAgainst All Odds/i (with Greer in a supporting role). --iRobert Horton/i

Customer reviews

review by: homopromos date: 2009-04-29 rating:

The past is always with us
Jacques Tourneur is the director of "Out of the Past" (originally released in the UK as "Build My Gallows High"). A French emigre whose first films were early talkies made in Paris, he's another director who shows the influence of European Cinema on Film Noir. The quiet petrol pump attendant with the past could just as easily have been Jean Gabin as Robert Mitchum. Prior to these movies he made very superior low-budget horror - Cat People The Cat People/The Curse of the Cat People [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC], I Walked with a Zombie I Walked With a Zombie/The Body Snatcher [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC], and The Leopard Man. From "Cat People" he brought the great cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca (who also worked on "The Spiral Staircase") and there is something of the horror genre about the filming of this convoluted tale, where you never know what you will find behind the door when you open it. br / br /The plot is extraordinarily complicated, and at the core of it are two questions - who do you really love? Who do you really trust? Mitchum's tragedy is that these are not the same person, but he goes with the love, and it is the death of him. br / br /This was the making of Mitchum, but it has to be said that this is more than anything else Jane Greer's film. I don't think there is another film noir where we feel the hero's love, pain and confusion about the "heroine" so much as in "Out of the Past". She makes us believe what she says, we want to believe her, because we believe her back story. There's a bar in Acapulco where they play American music "I go there sometimes" she says, wearily, and we immediately imagine her there, lonely, alluring. We wonder what else she does - she hints at much, much worse. The face is extraordinary: black, black eyes, a full mouth that has done its share of dirty doing. She is above all Knowing, and in the movie it is her business to know things and find them out. Good girl - bad girl, the eternal dilemma. And Greer is way, WAY bad. She was only 23 when she made this movie, but she knows how to indicate that she's been round the block and back. br / br /Mitchum inhabits this, his first real major starring vehicle, with the world-weary charm which became his trademark, which I think he found for this role for the first time. We know from the start, when the past returns, that he will be trapped and there is no way out for him. The one moment when he has second thoughts, when he pretends he can't start the car to escape, Greer overrides him and starts it herself. She is literally a femme fatale, and she WILL take him down with her. Because love is always dangerous and doomed. br / br /There are so many good lines here: "A woman with a gun is like a man with a knitting needle". (To Greer, in a bad moment) "Get out of this room, I have to sleep here". "I don't want to die - Neither do I, but if I have to, I'll die last." br / br /If Greer and Mitchum are perfect, Kirk Douglas in his first role as the villain Whit Sterling is less so. He smiles and smiles, but he seems to lack the ferocity necessary to the part. Besides Greer he is pale and uninteresting in his villainy, and tax evasion has never been the most glamorous of crimes. br / br /Greer and Mitchum were teamed again in "The Big Steal", in which she shines and he doesn't. She was a unique talent and a feisty girl (defying Howard Hughes to marry a man 20 years her senior), and she deserved better from subsequent films. But this is a wonderful memorial. br / br /

review by: brendoclarke date: 2008-02-29 rating:

Great Noir
A classic noir with Robert Mitchum as an ex-PI hiding out in a town until the past comes calling. Jane Greer is the femme fatale and Kirk Douglas plays the mobster Mitchum once wronged. I'd recommend this movie along with `The Killers'. Classics. br /

review by: Steve The BlackFerret date: 2008-01-18 rating:

Diamond Jubilee time!
This film is now 60 years old. br / br /Time to get a copy celebrate. You WON'T be disappointed. br / br /There are 3 compelling reasons. First, good film noirs either have a slow progression of inevitable events that hurtle the characters to their doom, or they have a manic sequence of events as the world goes suddenly mad;this one has a stonking mixture of both. br / br /Second, events usually unwind once the female is heavily involved in affairs. If you think Claire Trevor(Born to Kill) or Peggy Cummins(Gun Crazy) were girls to avoid, Jane Greer in this film is one to run away from-if you can! You get the feeling she is one you'd still feel compelled to commit murder for, to stop her from killing you! br / br /Third, the eternal triangle here has 3 very sharp sides. It ain't just Robert Mitchum loves Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas ditto-1947 Hollywood or not, the 2 male leads are possibly more than best buddies,too. Most interesting variation, this, and subtely etched on by director Jaques Tournier, who was still producing great films 10 years after this(Night of the Demon). br / br /As if 3 superb performances wasn't another definite reason to buy, Steve Brodie, as a creepy Dudley Doright Forest Ranger trying to get the nice country girl, Rhonda Fleming, away from Bob Mitchum is a minor but much appreciated role. Another sign of a good film noir is that black and white become very blurred and interchangeable. br / br /Well, that's enough-the plot you can find out for youself-you surely don't need any more reasons to buy, do you?

review by: date: 2007-09-12 rating:

Out of the Past
This film was originally known as "Build my Gallows High". Although a good film I was thrown by the title given to it in your lists. br /Some other customers may wish to note? br / br /

review by: Jari date: 2007-03-21 rating:

Film noir classic
Brutal, dark, intelligent and disturbing, but also with a great balance of warm and humour to make it even more complex and fascinating. That is how this film can be described. Made with great craftmanship and intellingence. This film is great example of film noir genre, a true classic. br /Also there's no better example of femme fatale than Jane Greer is in this film. Gives me gooze bumps everytime I watch this film- really scarry. Leading men Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas (who gives a short but effective and chilling performance) are stellar. br / br /The picture quality is good enough and the sound is too, though at the beginning of the film the audio track is cracking quite a lot, but in this kind of a film, it only gives more edge to the overall experience.

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