Out of the Past

To be honest, Out of the Past is one of probably five or ten so called "film noir" that I have seen. I have never really been drawn toward them, so I wasn't sure what I was going to think about Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past.

One thing I really liked was watching the development of Kathie Moffat played by Jane Greer. At the beginning of the film, she is portrayed as this nice lady and kind of innocent like she doesn't do anything wrong. We later understand that she works undercover just like Jeff. Throughout the movie, she is very manipulative and at one point tries to kill Jeff. To her despair, she doesn't realize that Jeff is going to double cross her. At the end of the film Kathie is shot and killed.

In class we were asked to think if Kathie was redeemable in anyway and this question made me think hard about it. I mean, Kathie had to have known that if she was being manipulative and going behind people's back trying to set them up that it was going to come back to her. I think she had it coming. She was the one who sent the guy out into the woods to kill Jeff. I think it's one of those things where the viewer can see it happening and hopes that it does. Overall I liked the movie more than I thought I would. It was very interesting and very dark which added to the affect and something I liked.