Out of the Past

In this definitive film noir, classic tough guys Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas square off in a complicated game of intrigue, duplicity, and lots o’viciousness. Mitchum is an ex-private detective who gets pulled back into the racket by some old criminal associates and then ends up pitted against big time crook Douglas.

Mitchum’s ex-girlfriend Jane Greer is the amoral seductress—every pulp fiction needs at least one—who manipulates them both. True to its name, the film opens with a flashback, which ends up occupying about half the film, and then proceeds to twist itself into a jumbo pretzel of double crosses.