September 13, 2016 (XXXIII:4) Jacques Tourneur: OUT OF THE PAST (1947, 97 min) DIRECTED BY Jacques Tourneur WRITTEN BY Daniel Mainwaring (screenplay/novel, as Geoffrey Homes), James M. Cain (uncredited) and Frank Fenton (uncredited) PRODUCED BY Warren Duff MUSIC Roy Webb CINEMATOGRAPHY Nicholas Musuraca FILM EDITOR Samuel E. Beetley ART DIRECTION Albert S. D'Agostino and Jack Okey SET DECORATION Darrell Silvera COSTUME DESIGN Edward Stevenson VISUAL EFFECTS Linwood G. Dunn National Film Registry, 1991 CAST Robert Mitchum…Jeff Jane Greer…Kathie different genres, all showing a great command of mood and Kirk Douglas…Whit atmosphere.” In the 1950s and ‘60s he also did a significant Rhonda Fleming…Meta Carson amount of TV work on such series as “The Barbara Stanwyk Richard Webb…Jim Show,” “The Twilight Zone,” and “Bonanza.” Some of Steve Brodie…Fisher Tourneur’s other films are Wichita (1955), Berlin Express Virginia Huston…Ann (1948), Days of Glory (1944) and I Walked with a Zombie Paul Valentine….Joe (1943). Dickie Moore…The Kid Ken Niles….Eels DANIEL MAINWARING (b. February 27, 1902 in Oakland, California—d. January 31, 1977 in Los Angeles, California) is a JACQUES TOURNEUR (b. November 12, 1904 in Paris—d. 19 novelist who also scripted 45 Hollywood films, among them December, 1977 in Bergerac, France) went to Hollywood in The George Raft Story (1961), Space Master X-7 (1958, aka 1913 with his father, director Maurice Tourneur. Starting out as Blood Ruse and Mutiny in Outer Space), Cole Younger, a script clerk and editor for his father, the younger Tourneur Gunfighter (1958), Baby Face Nelson (1957), Invasion of the then graduated to such jobs as directing shorts (often with the Body Snatchers (1956), The Phoenix City Story (1955), This pseudonym Jack Turner), both in France and America. He was Woman Is Dangerous (1952), They Made Me a Killer (1946), hired to run the second unit for David O. Selznick's A Tale of Tokyo Rose (1946) and Secrets of the Underground (1942). Two Cities (1935) where he first met Val Lewton. In 1942, when Lewton was named to head the new horror unit at RKO, JAMES M. CAIN (b. July 1, 1892, Annapolis, Maryland—d. he asked Tourneur to be his first director. The result was the October 27, 1977, University Park, Maryland) was a prolific highly artistic (and commercially successful) Cat People (1942). novelist whose work was frequently made into major films, for Some consider the three low-budget films Jacques Tourneur example, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, made with iconic producer Lewton the greatest works of the B- and Mildred Pierce. Born and raised on the East Coast and movie genre, Tourneur went on to direct masterpieces in many trained as a journalist, Cain moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, Tourneur—OUT OF THE PAST—2 around the time his first book was published. He returned to the stress caused him to suffer temporary blindness. About this East Coast about 15 years later, but it was in Los Angeles, a time, he began to obtain small roles in films, appearing in place he had conflicting feelings about, that Cain had his dozens within a very brief time. In 1945, he was cast as Lt. greatest success. Cain was in high demand in Hollywood, but Walker in The Story of G.I. Joe, and received an Oscar the relationship was fraught. A complete rewrite he did of the nomination as Best Supporting Actor. His star ascended rapidly, screenplay Out of the Past had to be rewritten again after he was and he became an icon of ‘40s film noir, though equally adept at done. Westerns and romantic dramas. His apparently lazy style and seen-it-all demeanor proved highly attractive to men and NICHOLAS MUSURACA (b. October 25, 1892, Italy—d. women, and by the 1950s he was a true superstar. This despite a September 3, 1985, Los Angeles, California) Italian-born brief prison term for marijuana usage in 1949, which seemed to Nicholas Musuraca's first job in the film business was as a enhance rather than diminish his "bad boy" appeal. Though chauffeur to early pioneering producer/director J. Stuart seemingly dismissive of "art", he worked in tremendously Blackton. Having a knack for photography, he worked behind artistically thoughtful projects such as Charles Laughton's Night the cameras in a variety of jobs before finally becoming a of the Hunter, and even co-wrote and composed an oratorio cinematographer (or, as they were called in those days, "lighting produced at the Hollywood Bowl by Orson Welles. A master of cameraman"). Musuraca spent most of his career at RKO accents and seemingly unconcerned about his star image, he Pictures, where he became known as a master of lighting--he played in both forgettable and unforgettable films with was once admiringly described by a fellow cameraman as "a unswerving nonchalance, leading many to overlook the painter with light"--and was largely responsible for the gritty, prodigious talent he could bring to a project which he found moody camerawork that compelling. He moved into became that studio's signature. television in the Eighties as his He was nominated for an film opportunities diminished, Academy Award for his work winning new fans with "The on I Remember Mama (1948). Winds of War" and "War and After leaving RKO in the late Remembrance".” Some of his 130 '50s he worked for a short films: Dead Man (1995), Cape period at Warner Bros., but Fear (1991), That Championship then joined Desilu Studios and Season (1982), The Big Sleep spent the remainder of his (1978), The Last Tycoon (1976), career in television. Musuraca The Friends of Eddie Coyle was cinematographer or d.p. (1973), Ryan's Daughter (1970), on about 175 films, among The Longest Day (1962), Cape them A Girl in Every Port, Fear (1962), Thunder Road (1952), I Married a (1958), Heaven Knows, Mr. Communist (1950), I Allison (1957), Not as a Stranger Remember Mama (1948), The (1955), The Night of the Hunter Bachelor and the BobbySoxer (1955), Track of the Cat (1954), (1947), Bedlam (1946), The River of No Return (1954), The Spiral Staircase (1946), Back to Bataan (1945), The Curse of Lusty Men (1952), The Red Pony (1949), Rachel and the the Cat People (1944), Bombardier (1943), Cat People (1942), Stranger (1948), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and Hoppy Lady Scarface (1941), Golden Boy (1939), and On the Banks of Serves a Writ (1943). He produced and wrote Thunder Road the Wabash (1923). (1958), and wrote the film’s song, “Wippoorwill,” which became a hit record. ROBERT MITCHUM (b. August 6, 1917 in Bridgeport, Connecticut—d. July 1, 1997 in Santa Barbara, California) is an JANE GREER (b. “Bettejane” Greer on September 9, 1924, in underrated American leading man of enormous ability who Washington, D.C.—d. August 20, 2001, Los Angeles). “If she'd sublimates his talents beneath an air of disinterest. Born to a never made another movie,” wrote Leonard Maltin, “this angelic railroad worker who died in a train accident when Robert was brunette would rate an entry in this book for her portrayal of the two, Mitchum and his siblings (including brother, John icy, manipulative temptress who makes chumps of both Robert Mitchum, later also an actor) were raised by his mother and Mitchum and Kirk Douglas in the film noir classic Out of the step-father (a British army major) in Connecticut, New York, Past.” As a baby, she was winning beauty contests; as a and Delaware. An early contempt for authority led to discipline teenager, with good looks and an attractive contralto voice, she problems, and Mitchum spent good portions of his teen years was singing with big bands (most notably Enric Madriguera's adventuring on the open road. On one of these trips, at the age orchestra in Latin Club Del Rio in Washington, D.C.. She met of 14, he was charged with vagrancy and sentenced to a Georgia Rudy Vallee, her first husband, on the radio where she also chain gang, from which he escaped. Working a wide variety of enjoyed a brief stint as a singer. At age 15, an attack of palsy jobs (including ghostwriter for astrologist Carroll Righter), left her face partially paralyzed. She claimed that it was through Mitchum discovered acting in a Long Beach, California amateur facial exercises to overcome the paralysis that she learned the theatre company. He worked at Lockheed Aircraft, where job efficacy of facial expression in conveying human emotion, a Tourneur—OUT OF THE PAST—3 skill she was renowned for using in her acting. Howard Hughes be a top leading man, Douglas played a thinly disguised Bix became attracted to Greer and brought her to Hollywood after Beiderbecke in Young Man With a Horn (1950), the "gentleman he saw her in Life magazine, modeling army uniforms for caller" in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie (1950), a women. Deciding that Bettejane was too "ingenuish", she heartlessly ambitious reporter in Ace in the Hole (aka The Big shortened her name to Jane for her billing in the film, Dick Carnival), a two-fisted cop in Detective Story (both 1951), a Tracy (1945). According to lore, Quickly married crooner Rudy frontiersman in The Big Sky, a ruthless movie producer in The Vallee after fleeing a possessed Howard Hughes, who kept her Bad and the Beautiful (both 1952, the latter Oscar nominated), virtually a prisoner during her first few months. An enraged an intrepid seaman in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954, in Hughes pressured her and ruined the marriage. She returned to which he sang "A Whale of a Tale"), the title role in Ulysses Hughes and her contract.