Long time a’comin’ but worth the wait.
Having just viewed Out of the Past in glorious Dolby Vision on a 120 inch screen I cannot find a fault with the encoding and the presentation. I am at a complete loss to comprehend the "reservations" several people online have expressed about their perceived "disappointment" with the new 4K disc. Strangely to me anyway the reservations come not from the usual chorus line of pixel peckers and other would-bes who think they understand film and film presentation. The non-believers here are two people in particular, both highly knowledgeable and, until now totally reliable for their judgments.
But for me this morning's viewing is one of three or four totally exemplary and flawless B&W academy ratio transfers to 4K scanning and encoding for a 4K disc (in this case again the inestimable David McKenzie of FIM.) All through it I kept feeling I was watching an original nitrate 35mm master being projected with a Xenon lamp (as it would have been in the day.) The image is completely stunning, sometimes pellucid, sometimes deep black-floor-high-contrast.
DP Nick Musuraca arrives in full splendour as a major co-auteur of the Noir "Look" along with John Alton. But this is only one of so many reasons the movie is a breakthrough. There's the big boost for Robert Mitchum from second string to lead player, and major star henceforth. It would also have been for Jane Greer if only Howard Hughes had not decided to lock her up in his mad starlets' cage. There's a lot to be said too about Daniel Mainwaring's original unpublished novel and the superb, witty, determined screenplay he finessed from it.
One of the picture's unique attributes is the two line throwaways from almost every character, down to the serving lady at the diner. Indeed every time I've watched Out of the Past with an audience you can bet everyone's "getting" it, especially from Mitchum (Kathie:" I don't wear earrings"; Jeff: 'Nor I.")
It's also a breakthrough picture for Tourneur as his first 90 minute plus "A” feature, after the three Val Lewton "B" pics, all three of which come straight at you already fully formed with Tourneur's superb visual language and his dedication to the hidden and the unknown.
So there it is for one of those "up there" pictures, and one of the most beautifully ever photographed - the scenes with Ann and Jeff by the river are largely shot staged front to a background of leaves completely filtering a full sun - it's impossible to describe them as anything other than paradise speaking to them before the fall.
That, and the catastrophic outcomes we determine for our sins is the heart of Tourneur's cinema and the Noir Movement. This is a very great masterpiece and the presentation is impossible to fault.
