Out of the Past (1947) 35mm & Detour (1945) | Noir City Detroit

Turner Classic Movie host and Film Noir Foundation President Eddie Muller returns with a selection of crime classics, half in rare 35mm film prints, with a focus on women related to his book Dark City Dames.

Friday 7 p.m.

Out of the Past (1947). RKO. 97 minutes. 35mm.

Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas vie for the honor of being betrayed by Jane Greer, the most desirable of devil dolls, in this quintessential noir masterpiece. A grubby private eye (Mitchum) is hired by a sleek gangster (Douglas) to rein in his fugitive frail (Greer). Complications ensue when dick falls for dame, hard. The serpentine plot, which ricochets from Manhattan to Mexico to Frisco to Tahoe, is spiced with some of the wittiest wisecracks ever, with every step of the dizzying adventure rendered in high noir style by Tourneur, art director Albert D’Agostino, and cameraman Nicholas Musuraca. Equal measures of poetry, poignancy, and hardboiled fatalism. The definitive film noir? You be the judge.

Detour (1945). PRC. 66 minutes. Digital.

Ann Savage’s ferocious performance as an avaricious drifter known only as “Vera” is at the black heart of this ramshackle affair, often cited as the ultimate tale of noir fatalism, as well as one of the most creative—if impoverished—movies ever made in Hollywood. Tom Neal plays Al Roberts, a hard-luck nightclub piano player who decides to hitchhike cross-country to reunite with his estranged girlfriend. Things steadily go from bad to worse, especially once vixenish vagabond Vera gets her hooks into him. Shot in only a few days on the most miniscule budget, Ulmer’s most famous film is a delirious fever dream of paranoia and dread.