Out of the Past

Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) A stranger comes into town looking for a guy. He's not from around here. The fancy suit gives it away at a glance—city-clothes, where the jacket doesn't zip up. And the manner. Tough, not friendly. Not altogether polite. In a hurry. Plus, everybody knows everybody else in a small town like Bridgeport. And everybody knows everybody's business. Nobody asks questions because everybody already knows the answers.

But, this guy's asking for Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum). You know, Jeff, "the mysterious Jeff Bailey" who owns the local gas station. What does he want with Jeff?—he's a guy on the level. Treats people decent, even the local deaf kid (Dickie Moore). Plus, Jeff is gone for the day, out fishing with Ann Miller (Virginia Huston), who's sweet on him. Her folks don't approve, though. Neither does Jim (Richard Webb)—you know Jim, he's been trying forever. Then, Jeff came into town and Jim's been playing second fiddle ever since. And this guy's asking for Jeff.

The Kid finds him while the city-guy pokes around the diner, and even though The Kid can't hear/can't speak, Jeff merely has to see him to know that something's up and the fishing has to be curtailed. The fishing in the lake, anyway. Jeff can relate. To the fish, I mean.

Turns out the guy is an "old chum from old times." And he has a message for him. Whit wants to see him. In Tahoe. Jeff's not a guy to telegraph what he's thinking or say what he's thinking. "I never found out much listening to myself," he says once. But, this...this is something he left miles out of the way. And Out of the Past.

Out of the Past came from a novel by Daniel Mainwaring, who used to be a private eye and a reporter before getting into pictures. He was a prolific writer of books and pictures and he was the natural go-to to adapt his novel "Build My Gallows High" (written under his pseudonym Geoffrey Homes). Humphrey Bogart read the script and liked it, but his bosses at Warner Bros. didn't. RKO bought it and were pleased enough with it to attach a good budget and a guy who knew his way around noir, Edward Dmytryk, to direct. But, there were conflicts with his schedule and so Jacques Tourneur (late of the Val Lewton horror unit) was brought in. Robert Mitchum was set to top-line and the script was punched up for him by Frank Fenton—who'd put words in Mitchum's mouth before—and James M. Cain, the godfather of noir, who'd written the novels of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity," and "Mildred Pierce." Together, these writers would craft dialog of a quality that was top-notch noir, that at its best is verbal shadow-boxing with its metaphors, its feints and jabs and dead-ends (but no knock-outs), a kind of gutter-poetry that evokes gruff chuckles or haunted thoughts.

So, Jeff has an appointment in Tahoe with a thing of his past. Best to take care of the present, so he goes to see Ann, maybe for the last time, and square up accounts and speak the truth, not avoiding it, even though "some of it's going to hurt". First, she tells him that the man she knows isn't him. He's Jeff Markham, and he was a private detective at one time, who had a reputation for being smart and honest, and a partner (Steve Brodie) who was neither. He'd been brought in by a "big op"—"an operator, a gambler" named Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas, in only his third film) about "some dame (who) took four shots at him with his own .38. Made one of 'em good." Whit's only slightly wounded, but what really smarts is she took $40 G's with her when she beat feet. Her name is Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), and he wants the money back, the girl is just interest.

After some digging and some hoofing, Jeff found her in Acapulco...and found her fascinating. Maybe it's the heat, or the waiting, or the anticipation, but when she walked into a bar, she walked away telling him were he might find her again...and walked away with his heart. He knew he was being a sucker, taking her side just because it was a nice place to be. And, as the waitress who works across from his future garage is given to say: "Seems like everything people ought to know, they just don't want to hear. I guess that's the big problem with the world." Jeff puts it more succinctly to Kathie: "Baby, I don't care."

"Baby, I don't care"

Famous last words. Jeff stops being smart, and he stops being honest...at least with his employer, Whit, who comes down to Acapulco to check on his progress. He doesn't tell him that he's found Kathie and that he's planning on leaving town with her that very day. They run to San Francisco, but the ends of the Earth wouldn't be far enough. He and Kathie are found by Jeff's old partner, Fisher, who tries to blackmail them for keeping quiet. Kathie shoots him, then runs out, leaving Jeff to dispose of the body. He never sees her again, and that's when he made his way to Bridgeport, to Ann, thinking he'd left his past behind.

Later, he'll say "You know, sometimes a bad memory is like what they call an ill wind. It can blow somebody luck." He doesn't specify whether it's good or bad. But, he leaves Ann to drive back to Bridgeport while he walks in to confront his past, too much of it, it turns out, knowing full well that it may doom his future. His talk starts to turn fatalistic, as he's led through a series of traps, trying to get ahead of it, but, seemingly, with his back always against something, hiding in the shadows trying to see his way to the light. But, he knows that this journey began with a bad step and like he told Kathie once "You're going to find it easy to take me anywhere." Even against his better judgment.

Out of the Past is one of the definitive film noir films, if not the epitome of the genre. But, it's not the world, or the machinations of the Universe, that's bad here, it's people, and how their influences on the world can drag you down, throw you off-course, even if you're smart, even if you're honest, even if you want a better life. It's your choices under their influence that make the difference and once you've made them, you can't escape them, whether physically or mentally. Past is prologue goes the saying, attached like a chain that binds you to it, and from which there is no escape, despite your best intentions. And no matter how nostalgic you may feel about them, it's best to not revisit old haunts.

That's why the ending to the film is so good. A lot of would-be film noirs will "cop out" the ending, tacking on the glimmer of hope, a way to redemption, and a warm hug. Out of the Past does that, but stays true to its cautionary theme, providing a moment of wisdom and of grace, a gift that jettisons the past and makes a clean start, free of regret. It deliberately brings hope and the good luck that an ill wind could toss. Mourning the past never did anybody any good. Leaving it behind and running towards the future is always the best path.

While the City Sleeps

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day, and while this film is certainly "trashy," it's sophisticatedly multi-layered.

While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956) 

"I wonder what the nice people are doing tonight?" asks esteemed writer-author-journalist-TV personality Walter Mobley (Dana Andrews).

Well he should ask, because there are few nice people in his circle of work, which happens to be some form of multi-headed Hydra of journalism, known as Kyne Enterprises. The head of Kyne has just died and the heir-apparent Walter Kyne (Vincent Price) is now in charge, but is a bit feckless and knows nothing of the news business, nor, apparently is he willing to have anybody tell him about it as he decides to delegate. He's going to create a new Executive Director position that will answer to him without having to know all the details. But who is it going to be?

There're many to choose from, besides Mobley, an Edward R. Murrow-type: there's also the urbane head of the wire-service Mark Loving (George Sanders); crusty newspaper head John Day Griffith (Thomas Mitchell); and there's television head "Honest" Harry Kritzer (James Craig). They all want the job and will stoop to any advantage to get it. But Walter has other ideas. He's going to make the contenders fight for it in a "Hunger Games" kind of run-off—winner take-all, and the losers...well, they extend to more than Kyne Headquarters.

It just so happens they're in the news business and New York has a big news story: there's a serial killer in town breaking into apartments and attacking women and has been labeled "The Lipstick Killer"—that would be the ironically-named Robert Manners (John Drew Barrymore), a nervous, slimy type dressed in leathers. It's okay that we know who it is—Lang starts the film out with him carrying out one of his strangulations—as the director is more interested in the power struggle of the media elites eating each other to get the job of "Top Toady."

Meanwhile, as they connive, deceive, and block each other from finding whodunnit, the City sleeps, albeit not very peacefully.

This is territory Lang has worked with before, as early as his silent films for UFA in Germany. In his films Metropolis, Spies, the "Mabuse" features, authority figures wrangle in power struggles completely ignoring the plights of the ordinary citizens who might fall victim as a result. But, those films involve cat-and-mouse games between authorities and criminal masterminds. In Where the City Sleeps, the field of play is publishing/broadcasting, and the criminal is not mastermind, but a craven nobody like the child-murderer of Lang's M. While the department-heads wring their hands worrying about advantage, he's in the streets looking for opportunity.

Lang's film has enough layers that one might even miss that his film is lumping the newsmongers in with the serial killer in more ways than mutual benefit. For instance, how do they maneuver and manipulate the "contest" to their advantage? By throwing women under the bus, of course: Loving uses writer Mildred Donner (Ida Lupino) to seduce Mobley in order to get any inside info from the anchor (it doesn't matter that Mobley is engaged to Loving's secretary, Nancy Liggett, played by Sally Forrest); Kritzer is having an affair with Kyne's wife (Rhonda Fleming) in order to use her as a mole for scoops and news oh his standing in the contest and so she can talk up her lover—they've even set up a rendezvous apartment, which happens to be close to Liggett's, as well; and finally, Mobley hatches a scheme with the police lieutenant working the case (Howard Duff) to set up the "Lipstick Killer" using his fiancée as bait. "Nice!"

Mobley's little scheme is to go on the air, using inside knowledge of the investigation and taunt the Killer into targeting his fiancée as an act of revenge. Then, it should be an easy thing to just keep tabs on her until the killer makes his move. Easier said than done, and things get dicey enough that it gives these paragons of the public trust a little taste of terror in the midst of stabbing each other in the back for a single rung up the power ladder.  

The cast is great; everybody's a character actor who can milk their scenes for all they're worth and rattle off movie lines like they're still stuck in the 40's. The only thorn among roses is Barrymore, who seems to have gotten directions from Lang that might have been more effective in the silent era. He's all slack-jawed, hooded-eye malice who could only look like more of a pervert if he had the letter "M" chalked on his leather jacket.

Still, that's the only glaring misstep from one of the masters of German cinema, still employing the old tricks and getting away with it (because the tricks were novel and original when he invented them). One still sees the high-contrast shadows—even though the film is mostly a daylight picture, it's still considered "noir"—the surprises just out of frame, the window-partitioned world, and décor that reflects character. Lang even gets to use his old trick of having his actors facing the camera and delivering their lines directly to the audience, challenging them—in the age of television, it happens all the time!

I first saw While the City Sleeps—one of the last films Lang made in America—about a year ago, and I notice it's becoming a staple of movie channels, especially those that feature packages of "noir films." It's becoming more and more available and makes for entertaining viewing.