The Dark Past (film, 1948)

Dr. Andrew Collins ( Lee J. Cobb ) works as a full-time police psychiatrist in a major American city. Once, while watching lawbreakers detained by the police, Collins draws attention to a 19-year-old guy detained for robbery and resistance to the authorities. Despite the detective’s words that this is not the first time that a guy has been detained for a crime, Collins is asking for permission to work with a guy, hoping by psychotherapeutic methods to turn him from a potential criminal into a normal person. As confirmation of the seriousness of his words, Collins tells the detective a story that happened to him several years ago:

At that time, Collins worked as a professor of psychology at a university in a small town near the Canadian border . One Friday night, he, along with his family and a group of friends, went on a weekend to his country house on the lake, where he was going to relax, hunt and go fishing, and also work on a review of a new book on psychology. In addition to his wife Ruth ( Louis Maxwell ) and son Bobby (Robert Hyatt), Collins also invited his acquaintances to his cottage - businessman Frank Stevens ( Wilton Graff ) with his wife Laura ( Adele Jergens ) and writer Owen Talbot ( Stephen Dunn ), who is poorly connected with Laura hidden mutual sympathy. On the same day, having killed two guards, a dangerous criminal El Walker ( William Holden ) escapes. Taking the head of the prison hostage, Walker, in the company of his faithful girlfriend Betty ( Nina Foch ) and two henchmen ( Berry Kroeger and Robert Osterloch ), rushes to the lake, where their accomplice must arrive in order to transfer to the other side under cover of night. When Betty tells Walker that they will have to wait a few hours for the boat to arrive in an abandoned hut off the coast, Walker says that it is there that the police will look for them, deciding instead to wait in the nearby Collins Cottage. After that, he takes the warden out of the car and calmly kills him right on the road. Having reached Collins' house, Walker with his henchmen sends everyone except the owner to the bedrooms on the second floor, and locks two maids in the basement. Despite the tension, Collins is calm and confident. He communicates with Walker not as a hostage, but as a doctor with a patient, suspecting that he is suffering from some form of mental disorder. Some time later, his friend and colleague, Professor Fred Linder ( Stephen Gerey ), came to Collins with whom the psychiatrist was about to go hunting the next day. Fred brought Collins with his hunting rifle, which he repaired at his request. Under the threat of weapons, Walker forces Collins to open the door, and he hides behind a curtain. Entering the living room, Linder feels awkward and is about to leave. At that moment, Collins shows him with his eyes that a dangerous criminal was hiding in the house. Without hesitation, Linder grabs the gun, and tries to kill Walker, who came out from behind the curtains. However, the bandit manages to shoot him first, and only because at the moment of the shot Collins manages to push Walker, the bullet only wounds Linder in the arm, after which he, along with the rest of the guests, is sent to the second floor.

Asked by Collins why Walker was holding him in the living room rather than sending him to other hostages, the bandit replied that dividing them made it easier for him to manage the situation, in addition, he kept Collins alone downstairs in case of unexpected guests. With the consent of Walker, who has a certain interest in Collins' work, he sits down to work on an article on the book Madness and Criminal Consciousness. To the interested Walker, the professor talks about the mechanisms of functioning of the conscious and unconscious in a person, arguing that a violation of the interaction between them can lead to severe psychological trauma and even madness . Then, when Walker falls asleep in Betty’s arms, she tells the therapist that he cannot sleep normally, as he suffers from a constantly recurring nightmare in which he sees himself in a deserted place where heavy rain begins. Suddenly, in his hands is an umbrella with a noticeable hole through which rain continues to pour. When you try to plug a hole in your palm, Walker's fingers paralyze. Then he tries to escape from under the umbrella, but from all sides he is surrounded by metal bars, like a prison bars, for which he cannot escape. After awakening Walker, Collins offers to discuss his nightmare, saying that he can help him free himself from this nightmare forever. After the bandit’s consent, Collins suggests that he recall his childhood and his relationship with his father and mother. Meanwhile, already late at night, Linder's wife, worried that her husband was late for several hours, was calling the police. Knowing that Linder was supposed to call at Collins, the police arrived at the professor’s house with a check, but he, under the threat of a weapon, was forced to confirm that Linder had left long ago, and everything was calm in his house. After that, while playing darts, Collins has the opportunity to kill Walker with a dart, but he does not, saying that he "does not kill sick people." This awakens Walker's even greater confidence in Collins as a physician. Continuing the psychotherapeutic session, Collins, based on the symbolism of sleep, is trying to build a real life situation that led to Walker's mental trauma. In the end, with the help of a doctor, the criminal manages to recreate the scene from his childhood, when he, angry at the constant beating of his cruel father, took the police to the saloon, where he played cards. When he saw the cops, his father tried to get a gun, but was shot dead on the spot. Young Walker at this moment hid under the table, on which then the body of the shot father fell. Blood poured through the hole in the table on the boy, and Walker tried to plug the hole with his hand, but his fingers were paralyzed. When he tried to jump out of the table, he saw the legs of the policemen surrounding the table, through which it was impossible to push through. In the end, Collins explains to Walker that the bars in his nightmare are the legs of the police, the umbrella is the table, and the rain is blood. And the ruthlessness in the murders of the already adult Walker Collins explains that in each of his victims he saw a tough father, whom, he believes, he killed every time. However, now, as Collins is sure, when he explained to Walker everything that happened to his psyche, he was free from the nightmare that pursued him and would no longer kill. In the meantime, one of the handmaids locked in the basement manages to untie herself and get out of the window into the street. She immediately calls the police, who soon surrounds Collins' house. Walker, together with Betty, is going to leave the house under cover of shots and break through to the car, but Collins tells him that he will no longer be able to kill anyone. Not believing the psychotherapist, Walker walks out onto the threshold of the house, noticing a policeman hiding in a bush with a gun. He takes the cop in sight and prepares to shoot. However, the image of his father covering the cop is scattered in Walker's eyes, two paralyzed fingers of his hand suddenly straighten, and he is unable to pull the trigger to kill a man.

Concluding his story, Collins tells the detective that from that moment Walker could no longer kill, and if he had been cured in a timely manner, he probably would never have killed anyone. So it is with this 19-year-old boy. If you understand it and lead in the right way, then it will not become the next garbage of society.

According to film historian Sean Exmaker, from 1920 to the mid-1930s, “the director of the film, Rudolf Mate, had a long and successful career as a first-class cameraman in Europe,” where he shot such acclaimed paintings by Karl Theodor Dreyer as “ Michael ” (1924), “ Passion of Joan of Arc ” (1928) and “ Vampire ” (1932) ^[3] . After moving to Hollywood , Mate was nominated for an Oscar for five consecutive years as the best cameraman for the films Foreign Correspondent (1940), Lady Hamilton (1941), Pride of the Yankees (1943), Sahara (1943), and Cover Girl ”(1944) ^[4] . He also directed two highly acclaimed noir films - The Guild (1946) and The Lady of Shanghai (1947), both with Rita Hayworth - shortly after which he became directors, staging films such as Noir like Dead on Arrival (1950) ), Union Station (1950) with Holden in the title role and Second Chance (1953) ^[5] .

According to Exmaker, “it was completely by accident that both Cobb and Holden made a breakthrough in Hollywood, starring together in the movie“ Golden Boy “(1939), where the young handsome episodic actor Holden played his first major role, and Cobb played his father. According to Holden biographer Bob Thomas, this story did not contribute to smoothness in establishing working relations between them during the filming of The Dark Past. Cobb’s constant negativity and eccentricities are said to have undermined Holden’s confidence in a partner, and Nina Foch was forced to rebuild it ” ^[3] .

Later, Holden played in the film noir “ Sunset Boulevard ” (1950), which earned him an Oscar nomination , and “ Turning Point ” (1952), as well as in such recognized films as “ Prisoner of War Camp No. 17 ” (1953, for his role in which he received an Oscar), “ Bridge over the River Kwai ” (1957), “ Wild Gang ” (1969) and “ Television Network ” (1976, Oscar nomination) ^[6] . Lee Jay Cobb was subsequently twice nominated for an Oscar for supporting roles in the films “ In the Port ” (1954) and “ The Brothers Karamazov ” (1958) ^[7] . In addition, he became famous for playing in such criminal dramas and noir films as “ Boomerang! ”(1947),“ Call Northside 777 ”(1948),“ Thieves Highway ”(1949),“ 12 Angry Men ”(1957) and“ Party Girl ”(1958) ^[8] . The film expert Exmeaker called Nina Foch “a piercing beauty of category B films, which switched to category A films” after success in the film noir “ My Name is Julia Ross ” (1945) ^[3] . In addition to this picture, he played in such noir films as Johnny O'Clock (1947), Johnny Allegro (1949), Undercover Man (1949) and Lawlessness (1955) ^[9] .

As film reviewer Dave Kerr wrote, the movie “ Charles Widor 's Dead End ” (1939) was “one of the first American thrillers to affect Freud’s teachings, which became very popular in cinema in the 1940s.” ^[10] Exmaker noted that In the mid-1940s, under the influence of the increasingly popular psychoanalysis, the film noir plunged into the dark corners of consciousness due to its cultural impact. ”As a result, post-war thrillers such as“ Vertigo ”(1945) by Alfred Hitchcock ,“ Dark Mirror ”(1946) by Robert Siodmak and “ Conflict ” (1945), in which the psychiatrist, played by Sidney Greenstreet, is playing an intellectual game with the alleged killer, played by Humphrey Bogart.3 The film "The Dark Past" was released a few years after the beginning of the "Hollywood love affair with psychoanalysis. It follows in the footsteps of" Vertigo "using Freudian dream analysis to uncover and heal the psychological wounds of the past ... and in record time! ” ^[3] . As noted in the New York Times review dedicated to the film, although“ Freud’s connection to films is not special news, it’s nice to report that the Dark Past achieves one of the most impressive results from such a merger ” ^[11] .

Overall rating of the film

After the release of the film on screens, he received fairly high ratings of criticism. In particular, Variety magazine called it “a fresh and clear melodrama” ^[12] , and the New York Times rated the picture as “concise and clear, well-made little film.” Her review notes that the film "spills out into a clear, intense and clever melodrama," which relies on a lightweight version of "psychoanalysis without confusing the viewer with its terminology" ^[11] . And despite the fact that the studio already made a film on this play in 1939, “The Dark Past” “in no way looks like something boring or repeating the previous picture” ^[11] .

Modern film critics rated the film more critically. Craig Butler, in particular, noted that "without a doubt, the film made a more powerful and strong impression at the time of its first appearance on the screens than it looks today." In particular, the interpretation of psychoanalysis in the film "is perceived today as nothing more than ingenuous babble, and the ability of a psychologist to heal a fierce killer in a few short hours is so ridiculous that it cannot but cause laughter." In addition, the film is harmed by “heavy dialogue” and “its too obvious theatrical origin,” and “the lack of variety in the interior that could be used to create a proper claustrophobic atmosphere, on the contrary, leads to a visually boring film” ^[13] .

Alan Silver called the picture "a clear example of Hollywood simplification of Freudian psychology. Using dream analysis as the basis for analyzing the psychological problems of criminal abnormalities, the film flows in the grim tradition of Alfred Hitchcock's “Vertigo”. Silver attributes the production of sleep episodes to the unique features of the picture and the crude, cruel image that Holden creates ^[14] . The TimeOut magazine reviewer draws attention to the "theatrical nature" of the production and to the "inconclusiveness of the plot twist" with a psychoanalysis session curing the criminal, which is "accompanied by significant pop psychology" ^[15] . The exmaker also points out the unlikely fact that "a deep Freudian analysis cures the Oedipus drama of a gangster in one night" ^[3] . According to Dennis Schwartz, this is “a tense film about a gangster and hostages, which takes place in the 1940s, in which criminals walk around in elegant hats and expensive costumes. Therefore, all this is more like a performance than a film, which is not surprising, since it was originally a play. ” Schwartz notes that although the whole film is “built on pop psychology, the actors are so serious about everything that is happening that it’s very funny to listen to their cues with impassive faces.” And, of course, in order to “believe this film, one must take for granted the fact that a psychiatrist can cure a criminal of murders forever in a few hours.” In other words, from the point of view of a demonstration of Freudian psychoanalysis, “this is a purely Hollywood hocus-pocus, although well played” ^[16] . According to Selby, the film, using a “psychological concept, tries to analyze and explain the nightmarish roots of the killer’s psychopathic behavior” ^[17] , and Kini believes that the film “offers a controversial solution to violent criminals - to send young offenders to psychiatric hospitals instead of prison, before what they will manage to turn into mad killers ” ^[18] .

Evaluation of the work of the director and creative team

The New York Times reviewer, who praised the film, wrote: “It is gratifying to note that screenwriters and director Rudolf Mate successfully introduced such scientific concepts as“ violence ”,“ consciousness ”and“ subconsciousness ”into the fascinating narrative, as well as“ constant threat of side of an aggressive Walker, trying hard to deflect himself from the questions of a professionally persistent psychiatrist ” ^[11] .

Exmaker draws attention to the fact that "this is only Mate’s second film as a director, when he was still on the way to his best results in terms of working with actors, staging dramatic scenes and developing a narrative rhythm." Because “Mate and his scriptwriters could not completely smooth out the roughness of the play in their film adaptation, and their simplification of psychoanalysis was too superficial even for 1948” ^[3] . However, Exmaker notes that “Mate’s strength lies in his visual sense. In some well-posed scenes, he achieves the best results in interior shooting, and with the help of simple technologies with maximum power visually conveys Walker's repeating nightmare. Holden's abstract imaginative world is immersed in a fog of emptiness, where only falling rain, an umbrella and a surreal cage made of steel bars break the ethereal darkness. This world becomes completely ghostly and strange when Mate turns the image into a negative , which makes the raindrops dark and menacing, like black poison falling from the sky ” ^[3] .

Kini notes that “although the director Mate goes overboard using some noir tricks (narrative, flashback , flashback in flashback and a strange episode with a dream), they work well, making the prosaic plot more interesting” ^[18] . The site of the American Institute of Motion Picture Arts also refers to the use of non-standard camera techniques in the film, in particular, “the initial episodes were shot using the subjective camera technique and shown through the eyes of Dr. Andrew Collins ... and the dream episode was made in a negative image” ^[1] .

Actor rating

According to the New York Times reviewer, "William Holden is distinguished by the dream-hit killer, which is both ruthless, nervous, and explosively dangerous, who reluctantly obeys the doctor’s eccentric tactics." On the other hand, Lee J. Cobb creates an equally excellent image of an unflappable scientist who seeks to "heal people, not kill them." Nina Foch restrained and professionally plays the girlfriend of a gangster who suffers from the Oedipus complex. “Guests at the house of Dr. Stephen Gerey , Adele Jergens and Wilton Graff , as well as criminals, especially Berry Kroeger, play unpretentiously, but skillfully” ^[11] . According to the reviewer of Variety , “Cobb is always confident in himself, smoking a pipe skillfully creates the image of a doctor, Holden is convincing in the role of a stressed-nervous prisoner on the run, and Nina Foch copes well with her role as a gangster’s girlfriend” ^[12] .

Craig Butler also concludes that, “fortunately, the film contains a powerful, desperate play by William Holden and a quieter, more restrained but still hypnotic play by Lee J. Cobb. These two works, along with the play by Nina Foch, as well as individual artistic techniques of the director Rudolf Mate, make the film worthy of attention. ” At the same time, the critic notes that although “neither Holden nor Cobb were their best roles,” nevertheless “each of them plays his part by pressing the right buttons and using his considerable abilities to breathe life into this the rest is ordinary melodrama ” ^[13] .

Exmaker called the picture “a small noir, significant mainly in an uncharacteristically bestial way” created by Holden, demonstrating “the extreme manifestations of those emotional traumas and mental instability with the help of a tense grimace under a sadistic grin or a slowly burning look of a person ready for an attack” ^[3] . The critic recalls that “Holden had previously played insidious, morally ambiguous and even cruel people, but Al Walker became the only true psychopath in his career. With a hedgehog haircut (which he reminds of Bogart in The High Sierra (1941)) and facial features illuminated by hard light with minimal makeup, this is not at all the playful con man or charming cynic that Holden was so good at playing. ” This is “a fierce, harsh and ruthless character with a sadistic bias that is full of anger, and Holden with an increasing degree shows his disgusting character” ^[3] . Further, the Exmaker notes that although "Holden tops the list of actors," however, Lee J. Cobb, the third named, "is present on the screen more than him." The critic writes that Cobb was able to play “officials, usually harsh, unyielding bosses, in particular in films such as Call Northside 777 (1948) and Boomerang! “(1947).” However, in this picture, Cobb demonstrates "a much more paternal type of official, calming and sympathetic (and maybe only slightly annoyed), when he tries to get Walker out of his protective pose and talk about his most repressed memories." Cobb plays his character “with extraordinary confidence and calm control, not for a second losing his composure and composure.” As if for him to be taken hostage - it’s the same as spending the next day in his office ” ^[3] .

• Alain Silver (Editor), Elizabeth Ward (Editor). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition . - Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 1992 .-- ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 .
• Spencer Selby. Dark City: The Film Noir . - Jeffeson, NC: McFarland & Co Inc, 1997 .-- ISBN 978-0-7864-0478-0 .
• Michael F. Keaney. Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940–1959 . - Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2003. - ISBN 978-0-7864-1547-2 .
• Andrew Dickos. Street With No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir . - Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2002. - ISBN 978-0-8131-2243-4 .

• Dark Past at IMDB  
• The Dark Past at Allmovie  
• The Dark Past at the American Film Institute's website
• The Dark Past at Turner Classic Movies