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Out of the Light: An Analysis of Narrative in Out of the Past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

John Harvey
John Harvey
Affiliation:
John Harvey is currently working towards a Ph.D. on the subject of narrative in post-war American film at The University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham.
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Extract

When Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past was released in November 1947 it was seen by the trade press as an efficient example of an RLO medium-budget thriller. The Hollywood Reporter called it “action-packed and suspenseful” and “solidly entertaining,” suggesting “a profitable box office pay-off.” Film Daily headlined the film's “strong box office possibilities”. Yet, even allowing for this moderate enthusiasm, Variety was surprised to find Out of the Past placed as high as seventh in the listing of the top ten money-making films in the United States for the month of December. This set it just below such films as Hope and Crosby's Road to Rio and the John Garfield boxing movie directed by Robert Rossen, Body and Soul.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , April 1984 , pp. 73 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Out of the Past (RKO studios, USA, 1947)Google Scholar. Director: Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay: Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring), based on his novel Build My Gallows High (1946). Photography: Nicholas Musuraca. Featuring: Robert Mitchum (Jeff Baily/Markham), Jane Greer (Kathie Moffett), Kirk Douglas (Whit Sterling), Virginia Huston (Ann Miller), Rhonda Fleming (Meta Carson), Paul Valentine (Joe Stephanos).

2 Hollywood Reporter, 14 Nov. 194.

3 Film Daily, 20 Nov. 1947.

4 Variety, 31 Dec. 1947.

5 Magill, F., ed., Magill's Survey of Cinema (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Salem, 1980), 1287–89Google Scholar.

6 Flinn, Tom, ‘Out the the Past’, The Velvet Light Trap, 10 (1973), 38–43Google Scholar.

7 Ottoson, Robert, A Reference Guide to the American Film Noir (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1981), p. 132Google Scholar.

8 Richard, Maltby, “Film Noir: The Politics of the Maladjusted Text,” Journal of American Studies, 18, (1984), 49–71Google Scholar.

9 Bellour, Raymond, lecture/seminar The Image of Cinema (National Film Theatre, London, 18 03 1983)Google Scholar.

10 Cavell, Stanley, Pursuits of Happiness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

11 See especially the essays collected in Kaplan, E. Ann, ed., Women in Film Noir (London: British Film Institute, 1978)Google Scholar.

12 Sylvia Harvey, “Woman's Place: The Absent Family in Film Noir,” in Kaplan, p. 22.

13 Chandler, Raymond, The Big Sleep (New York: Knopf, 1939), Chapter 24Google Scholar.