The Dark Past (1948, Rudolph Maté)

The Dark Past opens with a lengthy, confidently showy, and capable POV sequence. Lee J. Cobb is arriving at work, just like anyone–and the movie does a lengthy “peoples is peoples” bit–except he’s a police psychiatrist. It’s his job to save kids from becoming hardened criminals, thereby not being on the taxpayer dime. It’s progressive but not too progressive. Cobb’s not some wuss.

Cobb is outstanding in the film. It’s a sometimes silly role with the framing sequence, but when he gets to acting, it’s acting. Past is a remake of a stage adaptation, and Maté spotlights the actors. Well, Cobb and Holden. Cobb’s the protagonist and narrator, and Holden’s the star. The rest of the cast stays busy, but everyone gets left in the dust. It’s worst for Nina Foch. Second-billed, and she just disappears.

Oh, yeah, the setup. So, when Cobb has to convince a cop a petty criminal is a human being, he tells the story of his adventure with Holden. Holden’s so infamous everyone recognizes his name. But apparently don’t know anything about his very consequential involvement with Cobb. No spoilers, but the more interesting story is the direct sequel.

So, back to the setup. Holden and his gang crash Cobb’s dinner party. They need a place to wait for their getaway boat. While the guests give Holden’s gang minor trouble, Cobb gets around to psychoanalyzing Holden in a commercial for the Freud method. Holden’s a vicious killer who delights in toying with his prey, but Cobb sees some glimmer of humanity and tries to cure him. Foch kind of wants picket fences and helps Cobb.

The second act is Cobb slowly unraveling the very simple knot Holden’s tied out of his subconscious. Holden can’t unravel it himself because he has repressed memories, which only come out in his single, ever-recurring nightmare. There’s an inverted color dream sequence. It’s not as successful as it should be.

Despite his top billing, the film keeps Holden in reverse for a good while. Once the bad guys take everyone hostage, it takes time even to get Holden and Cobb talking. Partly because of Holden’s reticence, and partly because there are so many subplots cooking. Every single one of them gets left unfinished. The film often feels like the framing device is a distraction from the real story–which is sort of true because there doesn’t end up being a comparison between Holden and the kid criminal in the present. It’s not about criminals possibly being human; it’s about psychiatry curing them of their anti-social tendencies. Cobb’s not even concerned how the patient feels about things.

It’s craven, and it makes for some great scenes. Holden can’t figure out Cobb’s angle, and–with the frame defining the character already–neither can the audience. Cobb’s intentionally inscrutable; the only thing the frame helps with.

Lois Maxwell plays Cobb’s wife, who does get to fail Bechdel with Foch, but otherwise just sits around with son Robert Hyatt. He’ll end up with a bit to do before the movie drops him for the next subplot. Past is so noncommittal to its subplots, for a while near the end I thought they might even skip closing the bookend. At that point, with everything else unfinished, why do it anyway?

Maxwell’s solid. She doesn’t get much at all. Foch is good with a little more. Between Holden and Cobb, Holden probably has the edge. It’s a showier role, but he’s also got an arc. Cobb’s just proving one point or another.

While Past has its problems, the stars are phenomenal, Maté’s direction is good, and Joseph Walker’s black and white cinematography is beautiful.

This post is part of the 6th Golden Boy Blogathon hosted by Emily of The Flapper Dame and Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema.

Gun Crazy (1950, Joseph H. Lewis)

We don’t see John Dall court Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy. We get to see them meet cute when Dall—back home after the Army (and reform school before the service)—and his pals go to carnival and see Cummins’s shootist act. Dall was in reform school for breaking into a store to steal a pistol and has been obsessed with guns his entire life. He won’t kill anything—there’s an exceptional flashback sequence while young Dall (played by a wonderfully tragic Russ Tamblyn) is in court and everyone testifies about his love of guns and his abhorrence of violence. He’d never use them to shoot anyone, everyone tells the judge (a very good Morris Carnovsky), he just wants them around all the time and maybe to, like, shoot the channel switcher on a TV someday.

But never to kill anyone.

The film never addresses Dall’s military service in that regard and is able to avoid it because right after Dall becomes bewitched with Cummins, he joins the traveling carnival as another shootist. He quickly starts romancing Cummins, running afoul of carnival owner Berry Kroeger who’s been blackmailing Cummins into his company and has no plans on letting up. Kroeger is the one who gives the insight into what the courtship must look like—they look at each other, Kroeger complains, “like a couple of wild animals.” Thanks to Kroeger, the whirlwind courtship ends with Dall and Cummins married and jobless. They try to make an honest go of it, but once the money runs out—they try to beat Vegas (Cummins is a British expat and in some ways more naive than the very naive Dall) and fail—Cummins gives Dall an ultimatum.

Either they start sticking places up for cash or she’s leaving him. It doesn’t take Dall much thought. It takes him a little bit of thought and we get to see it on his face and we get to see Cummins waiting for his decision because director Lewis is all about how the couple is experiencing their tragedy. But pretty soon they’re sticking up everything from hotels to banks, but never hurting anyone because Dall says no killing.

There’s eventually a great conversation between Dall and Cummins about the no-killing thing, which turns into this great contrast of their respective naiveties as well as a fine character development reveal for Dall. The film’s got a very simple, very linear plot with director Lewis and screenwriters MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo focusing on the character relationship between Dall and Cummins when they’re not sticking up the joint, rather coming off the high.

Towards the end of the film, we get to see what Kroeger was talking about with the wild animal looks. At least from Cummins; we’ve seen them some from Dall, who’s usually the one trying to keep the couple from breaking apart under the stress, but the scene where we finally get to see Cummins gazing hungrily on Dall. It is indeed a little scary. It’s closest to the terrified look Cummins gets when she’s feeling cornered and like she needs to shoot her way out, not worrying about who or what the bullets are going to hit. But Dall’s not in the same place as Cummins, who’s alone, a stranger in a strange land; Dall’s got loving big sis Anabel Shaw and his hometown pals, cop Harry Lewis and reporter Nedrick Young. The film occasionally checks in with them during the montages to show how Dall’s life of crime is affecting the loved ones who never gave up him for being, you know, Gun Crazy.

Dall and Cummins keep trying to get stable financially but something always goes wrong and they always need to pull another heist, leading to some exquisite chases sequences, both in cars and on foot. Lewis, cinematographer Russell Harlan, and editor Harry Gerstad are always inventive with how they present Dall and Cummins in rooms versus outdoors versus in cars. They’re trapped together in rooms; outdoors they’re free, in cars they’re hunting and hunted. Lots of extreme close-ups, perfectly lighted, perfectly cut, lots of very particular composition where the actors work together in an unbroken shot. Lewis perfectly balances the showiness of the characters with the intimate. The character development in Gun Crazy is one of its reassuring successes—the film implies it’s going to stick with it, even after it could get rid of it—for a movie called Gun Crazy, it’s not particularly sensational in how it depicts Dall and Cummins (outside when they’re running around dressed in Old West outfits). Lewis and the writers always make sure the film’s an endless fount of empathy and compassion… all while making no promises about hope or redemption.

It’s an exceptional film with singular direction from Lewis. He makes it all happen. I mean, the script does quite a bit, but Lewis (and his crew) make it magic.