Revealing Robert Mitchum’s Dark ‘Past’

“Out of the Past,” director Jacques Tourneur’s 1947 classic film noir, starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer, is considered a benchmark of the dark and disturbing filmmaking style.

The movie--in which a California gangster (Douglas) hires a private eye (Mitchum) to track down his mistress (Greer), who shot him and ran off to Acapulco with $40,000--screens tonight at 8 as part of Chapman University’s free, 14-week film-noir series.

The screenings are followed by a discussion led by Bob Bassett, dean of the university’s School of Film and Television--think of it as dinner followed by dessert. Here, courtesy of Bassett, are a few hors d’oeuvres to chew on before the film.

“Film noir really encompasses a lot of different ideas and themes,” Bassett said. “One of the central ones is obsession. This film is quintessential in that way, and Mitchum is the perfect protagonist. He is obsessed from the moment he sees Kathie[Greer], who’s the femme fatale.”

Bassett said the scene in which Mitchum first casts his famous hooded eyes upon the sultry Greer is a classic:

“She walks out of the Acapulco sunlight into this dark cantina. The moment he sees her, he realizes something different has entered his life. From that moment, it’s almost like he embraces his fate.”

Mitchum and Greer meet again at a bar two nights later. Said Bassett: “The first thing they do is go to a gambling casino, which is a metaphor of what’s happening to him: He’s sort of risking it all.”

Greer bets large sums of money on each spin of the roulette wheel; Mitchum tells her that isn’t the way to win. “Is there a way to win?” she asks him. His sardonic reply: “Well, there’s a way to lose more slowly.”

“That, in a way, captures his sense of doom,” Bassett said.

Bassett says Mitchum, 28 when he played the role that made him a major star, is the ideal film-noir protagonist.

“Partly it’s his voice. He has this very hypnotic, melodic voice, and so you really sense this doom. He has an awareness that he’s inside of a labyrinth and he’s trying to find his way.

“At one point in the movie he’s in a cab, and the cabby asks him what he’s up to. He says, ‘I’m in a frame, and I’m going inside this building to see if I can see the picture.’ It’s a metaphor, that of realizing that he’s in the labyrinth and trying to understand what’s going on.”

Bassett disagrees with those who say the film-noir style began with “The Maltese Falcon” in 1941. “What we think of as noir really began with ‘Double Indemnity’ [in 1944]. There are four or five pictures that nailed that subject. ‘Double Indemnity’ did it perfectly. So did ‘The Killers’ [1946], ‘Criss Cross’ [1949] and also this picture, ‘Out of the Past.’

“What they capture is this person, this protagonist--he’s always a male--who becomes obsessed with this woman, this femme fatale. They spend the picture benighted. They’re enthralled, and she’s a Circe. She’s luring the protagonist to his destruction.”

But by the end of these pictures, “there is a recognition scene where the protagonist sees this woman for what she is--and she almost invariably has to die at this point.”

Enough said.

“Out of the Past” screens tonight at 8 in Room 208 of the Argyros Forum, Chapman University, 333 Glassell St., Orange. MPAA rating: Not rated. Running time: 100 minutes. (714) 997-6625.

Four-Legged Parable

As part of its fall-quarter series, Cinema: A World of Fragments, the UCI Film Society will present French director Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” at 7 and 9 p.m. Friday.

The 1978 film follows the progress of Balthazar (a donkey named after one of the three Wise Men) from birth to death, as it passes from different owners: a young girl who adores him, a man who abuses him, a circus where is turned into a star attraction and an old woman who believes he is a saint.

Of Bresson’s parable of life, director Jean-Luc Godard has said, “Everyone who sees this film will be absolutely astonished, because this film is really the world in an hour and a half.” Movie critic Jonathan Rosenbaum calls it “one of the 10 best films ever made.”

Screens Friday at the Crystal Cove Auditorium in the Student Center, UC Irvine, corner of West Peltason Road and Pereira Drive. In French with English subtitles. Running time: 100 minutes. Not rated. $4.50. (714) 824-5588.

In L.A. and Beyond

The second annual Hungarian Film Festival opens tonight at 8 p.m. at the Harmony Gold Theater, 7655 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, with the U.S. premiere of “Out of Order,” adapted from Ray Cooney’s stage farce by its writers-directors-stars, Robert Koltai and Andras Kern, two of Hungary’s top comedians. It also marks the first film produced by Hollywood veteran Andrew G. Vajna in his native country.

The rest of the festival will be held at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, where veteran director Karoly Makk’s exquisitely wrought English-language film “The Gambler” will screen Friday at 7:30 p.m. This film focuses on the relationship between Fyodor Dostoevsky (Michael Gambon) and young stenographer Anna (Jodhi May), who becomes his wife; it parallels the 160-page novel he is dictating to her against a 27-day deadline. “The Gambler” screens Wednesday at 9:50 p.m. Makk’s equally fine 1971 “Love,” which marked Lili Darvas’ return to Hungarian cinema after many years’ absence, screens Saturday at 5 p.m.

We don’t get to see many films from Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, all of them coping with post-communist economic realities, and it’s good to report that this festival abounds in treasures.

For full schedule: (818) 848-7395.

Chinese Classics

No national cinema has weathered so many wars and so much political upheaval as that of China, and it’s scarcely surprising that movies made before the 1949 Communist Revolution can be endlessly fascinating, such as those of the leftist cinema of Shanghai in the ‘30s and those made in the few years between the end of World War II and the fall of Chiang Kai-shek that reveal the impact of Hollywood.

The UCLA Film Archive’s “Pre-Revolution Chinese Classics” commences Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater with Sun Yu’s robust, stylish “The Highway” (1934), a silent with musical interludes and sound effects. Set against Japan’s invasion of China, it is nonetheless a hearty celebration of the strong, likable young men who labor night and day building a highway vital to China’s defenses.

“The Goddess” (1934), screening Sunday at 7 p.m., is a highly charged, socially conscious melodrama that shows to full advantage the beauty and talent of the legendary Ruan Ling-yu, whose dazzling screen presence elicits comparisons with Gish, Garbo and Brooks. For a full schedule of this outstanding and rare series: (310) 206-FILM.