Chapter 1

1947

EVERETT

Out of the Past

DIR. JACQUES TOURNEUR

With the exception of Humphrey Bogart, no star defined the laconic, existential cool—not to mention penchant for nicotine—of the noir antihero more than Robert Mitchum, shown here in a typical pose (albeit atypically without a cigarette). On- and offscreen, these men embodied a cynicism that was both characterized and offset by humor. Out of the Past’s script reads, according to Roger Ebert, “like an anthology of one-liners.”

In sleepy Bridgeport, California, an unassuming gas station owner, Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), receives a visit from a man that draws him back into a relationship with a mysterious, murderous woman from his past. And that’s only the beginning of this twisted, twisty film’s doom-laden romance. “It’s extraordinary, my favorite noir,” Lawrence Kasdan, the writer-director behind 1981’s neo noir Body Heat, tells LIFE. “It’s a total delight, delicious, and the dialogue is amazing.” (When Mitchum’s former lover says, “You ought to have killed me for what I did a moment ago,” he responds, “There’s time.”)

Indeed, Body Heat was influenced as much by Out of the Past as by Double Indemnity, Kasdan says, though his film was widely called an unofficial remake of the latter. Like Double Indemnity, Out of the Past is sharp, laconic, and cynical. It also helped define the genre’s distinctive look. According to noir expert Eddie Muller, author of Dark City, the film features “the richest chiaroscuro of any noir.” But Mitchum, for his part, chalked up the striking cinematography to the film’s low budget: “The high-priced actors like Cary Grant back at the studios got all the lights,” he said. “So [our set] was lit with cigarettes.”

Critic Roger Ebert even called Out of the Past “the greatest cigarette-smoking film of all time. The trick . . . is to throw a lot of light into the empty space where the characters are going to exhale. When they do, they produce great white clouds of smoke, which express their moods, their personalities, and their energy levels. There were guns in Out of the Past, but the real hostility came when Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas smoked at each other.”

Not least among the film’s pleasures is watching tyro talents Mitchum and Douglas beginning to establish themselves. “Douglas hadn’t really arrived yet, but you can see all the charisma there,” says Kasdan. “He was emerging into the persona he was going to inhabit. The same with Mitchum: You can see him coming into his own.” Though both stars went on to legendary careers, Mitchum would always be associated with his “humble” noir beginnings. “We called them B pictures,” he later said. “We didn’t have the money, we didn’t have the sets, we didn’t have the lights, we didn’t have the time. What we did have were some pretty good stories.”

Jane Greer as Kathie Moffat, one of noir’s greatest femmes fatales. She was reportedly discovered in 1943 by mogul Howard Hughes in the pages of LIFE magazine, where she appeared as a WAC in a war recruitment poster. “Find this girl as soon as possible and sign her up,” he said.

From left, Paul Valentine, Kirk Douglas, and Mitchum hatch a scheme in a film that’s positively filled with them.