Sep 3, 2022
The Dark Past (1948)
"What's eating you?"
"Nothing."
"That's what I mean, you haven't got the jitters like everyone else."
"I'm taking you at your word, Walker."
"My word?"
"You said you were waiting for someone. If we behaved ourselves, nothing would happen to us. I'm behaving myself."
#the dark past#film noir#american cinema#1948#rudolph maté#james warwick#play adaptation#oscar saul#malvin wald#philip macdonald#michael blankfort#albert duffy#lee j. cobb#william holden#nina foch#adele jergens#stephen dunne#lois maxwell#berry kroeger#steven geray#wilton graff#robert osterloh#kathryn card#fun home invasion thriller stuffed with cod psychiatry. a wraparound story and a (very well executed) nightmare sequence can't disguise the#stage origins of this mostly one room pot boiler‚ but Cobb and Holden both give it everything in very different performances. Cobb in#particular shines in a surprisingly lowkey role as the quiet and controlled psychiatrist who tries to cure the gun wielding killer#who's broken into his house. there's a poorly realised subplot about the marital strife of Cobb's weekend guests that would have been#better excised from the film‚ but the leads are strong and the plot tight enough. less well developed are the women's roles; Foch‚ a firm#favourite of my noir viewings‚ has an unrewarding role as Holden's concerned girlfriend and Lois Maxwell (whom I've never actually seen in#anything made before her move to the UK and Bond and tv work galore) is wasted in a thankless part as Cobb's mostly offscreen wife