A high-water mark in the genre, Out of the Past has everything you want in a film noir: a tenacious detective (Robert Mitchum) spinning his wheels to make good, a drop-dead beauty (Jane Greer) up to no good, and a moneyed mobster (Kirk Douglas) with a shark’s grin, plus double crosses, fall guys, shadowy rooms, and bleak souls. Mitchum plays Jeff Bailey, a one-time private investigator walking the straight and narrow of small-town life… until an acquaintance from his past pulls him back into the troubles he’d left behind.
