On the Making of Out of the Past (1947)

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Robert Mitchum's birth. Mitchum and his classic film noir Out of the Past (1947) have been such a part of my classic film journey. It seems fitting that for my blog's 10th anniversary and Mitchum's 100th that I dedicate today's post to this movie.



Out of the Past (1947) is based on the 1946 novel Build My Gallows High by Geoffrey Homes, a pen name for author Daniel Mainwaring. The film rights for the story went to auction before the novel was even published. RKO's William Dozier beat out Warner Bros. with the winning bid. Although the book was released as Build My Gallows High, it wasn't quite right for the movie. Such a morbid title wasn't going to work for audiences and a Gallup poll conducted by RKO confirmed that. The name was changed to Out of the Past most likely after filming was wrapped up.

Along with the rights to the novel, RKO also brought Mainwaring on board to work on the screenplay. He took a crack at it but it proved to be too complicated and the flashback structure just wasn't working. Various sources say that author James M. Cain (Postman Always Rings Twice) also attempted to write the screenplay by making numerous changes to Mainwaring's story and characters. Director Jacques Tourneur apparently read both screenplays and requested his own changes. A third writer, Frank Fenton, solidified the structure and added some colorful dialogue. Although multiple screenwriters worked on the adaptation, only Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes) received credit. In the end Tourneur still thought the final product was confusing but went ahead with the production regardless.

Tourneur wasn't RKO's first pick for director. When the announcement went out about the movie, Edward Dmytryk was listed as director. He had a scheduling conflict with the shooting of his movie So Well Remembered (1947) and had to drop out. Jacques Tourneur, who recently had some success at RKO making pictures with Val Lewton, was then hired as director. He brought cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca on board. They had previously collaborated on the RKO film Cat People (1942).



Mainwaring first envisioned Humphrey Bogart for the part of Jeff Bailey. He even went so far as to meet with Bogart and present him with the script. Bogart might have been interested but his studio Warner Bros. wouldn't loan him out with RKO. Was Warner Bros. bitter because they lost the auction? Perhaps. However, the story from Warner Bros. was that Bogart was far too busy with other projects and they couldn't possibly loan him out. Bogart would have been amazing in the role but I'm for one am glad it didn't work out. Other actors such as Dick Powell, Pat O'Brien and John Garfield were also considered. Finally RKO settled on Robert Mitchum, their contract up-and-comer who could be had on the cheap. He could prove he had chops the chops to be a leading man; he just needed the opportunity. The role of Jeff Bailey matched Mitchum's personality. It was a natural fit.

RKO built a cast of relative newcomers to round out of the film. These included Kirk Douglas, Jane Greer, Virginia Huston, Rhonda Fleming and Paul Valentine. Former child actor Dickie Moore, who had been recently recovered from a crippling virus, was signed on for the part of the deaf-mute "kid". He spent four weeks learning sign language for the role. Mitchum was paid around $10k for over 10 weeks of work in comparison to Kirk Douglas who was on loan from Paramount and received $25k for a much smaller role. Jane Greer, who was Howard Hughes' discovery, was just 22 when she landed the femme fatale role of Kathie. It was a great part for her and boosted her confidence in her acting abilities.

The crew set out to Bridgeport, California, a small town in the Sierra Mountains to scout out locations and start filming. Out of the Past has wonderful on location shooting in Bridgeport, Upper Twin Lake, Lake Tahoe and even San Francisco. (Check out Laura's awesome post about the different Bridgeport locations featured in Out of the Past.)

A week later Mitchum flew out to Bridgeport in what turned out to be one of the most dramatic entrances ever. Mitchum biographer Lee Server recounts that RKO's Warren Duff and Robert Mitchum took a 4 seater plane out to Bridgeport. As they landed, the wheels hit the runway but plane wouldn't slow down. The brakes had failed. The pilot tried with all his might to stop the plane. Server says "the aircraft smashed through a fence, hopped a ditch, and knocked over an outhouse before it came to a complete stop." Mitchum and Duff were knocked unconscious but no one was seriously injured. Who else can say they arrived for a film shoot via crash landing?

Once settled, the cast and crew would film in Bridgeport for three weeks. There wasn't much to do in town. During their free time, they'd hang out at a local tavern. According to Lee Server, "RKO sent up a projector and some spare prints, so in the evening people would gather around and watch Tom Conway as The Falcon..." RKO's publicist arranged for Mitchum to be involved in a publicity stunt. Mitchum, who was part Native American, was initiated into the Shoshone Indian tribe complete with headdress and photo op. When he wasn't at the beck and call of RKO, he'd write poetry and share it some of his fellow cast members including Dickie Moore. Newcomer Virginia Huston developed a massive crush on Mitchum while they filmed in Bridgeport and I can't say I blame her.



After the location shooting wrapped up, the whole unit traveled back to Los Angeles to film the remaining scenes at the RKO lot. That's when the rest of the cast including Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas, started working. Mitchum and Jane Greer got a long really well on set and soon became fast friends. Their friendship would last for decades. According to a few sources, Mitchum and Kirk Douglas got along fine but there was a professional rivalry between the two. They both played to the camera to steal a scene or two. This rivalry would continue for years but on a lowkey basis with both figures being dismissive of the other. But it's not like Mitchum would admit to this. In an interview with Jerry Roberts, Mitchum was asked about tensions on set and his response was, "Hell no. We had just seen him in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and were all delighted that he was in the picture." Director Tourneur and Mitchum were a match made in heaven. Tourneur found in Mitchum what he was looking for: an actor who was charismatic yet reserved and whose good looks and personality would bring a dreamy sensuality to Jeff Bailey.



Production wrapped up in January of 1947 but Out of the Past wasn't released until November of that year. In the midst of filming, RKO had hired Dore Shary as head of production. He dismissed basically every project RKO was working on before he was hired and Out of the Past suffered as a result. The film was released with little to no publicity. It made a modest profit for the studio but it wasn't considered the great classic it is today. In fact, it wasn't until decades later when Film Noir was defined and studied as a genre that Out of the Past was truly appreciated.

Out of the Past has had various home video releases over the years. It's currently available in a stunning blu-ray edition available from the Warner Archive Collection.

Sources
Baby I Don't Care: Robert Mitchum by Lee Server
Robert Mitchum In His Own Words edited by Jerry Roberts
TCMDB Article Laura of Laura's Miscellaneous Musings

Warner Archive Wednesday - Doctor, You've Got to be Kidding! (1967)

1967 was a rough year for Sandra Dee. She was in her mid-twenties and had outgrown the youthful persona that made her famous. Her contract with Universal, the last of the studio era, had ended a couple of years ago and now was the time to transition into a new phase of her career. However, the cutesy image of Sandra Dee was one that was difficult for the public to let go and when her husband Bobby Darin left her during the filming of Doctor, You've Got to be Kidding! (1967) it seemed like that image was shattered forever. This time proved to be a natural end to her acting career. She made a couple more films including Rosie (1967) and The Dunwich Horror (1970) and various film and TV appearances but Sandra Dee the movie star was no more. Even with all of this I refuse to look at Doctor, You've Got to be Kidding (1967) as anything but a fun, kooky film that captured the last of an on screen personality that has continued to captivate and charm us many years later.



Doctor, You've Got to be Kidding is an MGM film directed by Peter Tewksbury (originally intended for Charles Walters) and based on the novel Three for a Wedding by Patte Wheat Mahan. The plot for the story would be nothing without adding a bunch of zany antics to up the entertainment value. It starts with a crazy race to the hospital. Heather Halloran (Sandra Dee) is about to give birth and the identity of the child’s father remains a mystery. Her three suitors want to make her an honest woman and fight with each other to capture her as their prize. Who is the father of the child? Is it one of the three? Or someone else? And so the mystery begins.

Dick Kallman, Dwayne Hickman and Bill Bixby

We flashback to the beginning of Heather’s story. Her mother Louise (Celeste Holm) is an elevator operator determined to make her daughter a singing sensation. Over the years Louise has trapped various entertainment executives in her elevator and forced them to listen to Heather’s rendition of Be My Love. These elevator pitches got them nowhere. Heather grows up, dates boys, graduates college and joins the workforce all to her mother’s dismay.







Heather tries to live a normal life amidst the antics of her kooky mother and a trio of pushy suitors Hank (Dwayne Hickman), Dick (Bill Bixby) and Pat (Dick Kallman). She’s got plenty of guys going gaga for her but it’s her new boss Harlan Wycliff (George Hamilton) who drives her crazy. At first he’s just annoying her with his constant multi-tasking and his brutal honesty. But it just takes one car ride alone together for them to see fireworks. What’s Heather going to do now that she’s about to become an unwed mother and everyone in her life is absolutely bonkers?

Harlan: "Your trouble is that you're wholesome."
Heather: "What a rotten thing to say!”

For those of us who have a deep appreciation for Sandra Dee, this film is a charming entry to her body of work. It’s a glimpse at the last moments when she was happy before she went into the dark post-Darin years. It was during the filming of Doctor You’ve Got to be Kidding that Sandra Dee found out Bobby Darin had left her. In one scene with Bill Bixby, Dee’s character slaps him and she breaks down in tears. That is a real breakdown for the actress who couldn’t hold back her emotions during a turbulent time in her life. According to a TCM article, Dee slapped Bixby so hard she gave him a concussion. When you watch the scene closely there is a continuity error with her hair. It goes from wildly out of place to perfect coiffed. I’ve always wondered if the scene was too much for Dee and the rest had to be shot another day hence the continuity error.

Doctor You’ve Got to be Kidding has a sad background but is essentially a fun wacky film. It might be a bit much for contemporary audiences but those of us who love the absurdity of the 1960s will enjoy this one. My husband watched this one with me and was overwhelmed by it’s kookiness. I had to remind him that “it’s the ‘60s baby.”

The Good, the Bad and Me: In My Anecdotage by Eli Wallach

The Good, the Bad, and Me: In My Anecdotage
by Eli Wallach
Mariner Books
320 pages/9 hours, 42 minutes
May 2006

My current enthusiasm for all things audiobooks has me seeking out every classic film related recording on Audible I can find. But that wasn’t enough. After listening to Dick Van Dyke’s audiobook Keep Moving, I wanted to hear more from the stars themselves. There is something very intimate about listening to a famous person tell you their story that you don’t get from just reading their words on the printed page. Having their voices transmitted right into your ear as they tell you story after story is an amplified experience. And for those stars who have shuffled off their mortal coil and left the world of the living, an audiobook recording of their memoir is as close to them as we can get.

Eli Wallach has been a favorite of mine for years. Not only did I admire his talent and devotion to his craft, he always struck me as a genuine and quirky kind of a guy. (Did you know Wallach collected antique clocks? ) Wallach was lovable and charming even when he so effortlessly played villains on screen. In his 2006 memoir The Good, the Bad and Me: In my Anecdotage, Wallach takes us on a journey through his life and career. We start with his early years as a Jewish kid growing up in Brooklyn and we follow him as he finds his calling as an actor, goes to college in Texas, serves in the medical corps during WWII and meets the love of his life Anne Jackson. He even tells us how he learned about the birds and the bees in the most frank yet lovable way. Wallach’s narrative slows as he relates the details of his theater and film work. There is much here about his training as a method actor as well as the differences between acting for theater and acting for film. Wallach loved the immediate gratification of working on stage but was also lured by the rich rewards, fame and money, of film work. He shares lots of behind-the-scenes stories and reflects on his past experience with all the wisdom and self-reflection that comes with living a long life.

Classic film fans will love hearing anecdotes about Wallach’s movie work. He shares a lot of stories about The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) , the film that inspired his memoir’s title, The Misfits (1961), The Magnificent Seven (1960), How to Steal A Million (1966) and his first film Baby Doll (1956) . Audiences will love to hear his stories about notable figures including Marilyn Monroe, Sergio Leone, Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, Elia Kazan, Tennessee Williams and more.

Wallach was a charming storyteller and it’s easy to be captivated by him in this book. His voice demonstrated the wear and tear of old age but there is still a magic that comes from listening to the man himself tell his own story. You can almost see the twinkle in his eye as you listen to his words. Besides the many stories about his film work, I was particularly taken with his reflections on his home life. Wallach explains the complexities and challenges that come with being married to an another actor and raising small children. Wallach and Jackson struggled yet found balance in their work and marriage. They highly respected each other’s careers and although Wallach was the bigger star he made sure not to neglect her acting work. Wallach lovingly remembers the births of each of his three children and I particularly love the anecdote of him heating up milk bottles while pretending he was Louis Pasteur.

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson (source)

Even though I already owned a paperback copy of The Good, the Bad and Me, I’m glad I invested in the audio version. If you enjoy Wallach’s films and appreciate him as a person, listening to this audiobook will be a special treat. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself tearing up when the book is over. And as an added bonus, Anne Jackson makes a small cameo in the recording.

I purchased this book at Audible. It seems to be the only place online where you can find it. The original audiobook recording is most likely out of print.