Main Cast: William Holden, Lee J. Cobb, Nina Foch, Adele Jergens, Stephen Dunne
Release Year: 1948
Country: US
Run Time: 75 minutes
Plot
In this faithful remake of Blind Alley (1939), psychoanalyst Andrew Collins (Lee J. Cobb), his wife, his son, and some friends are taken hostage by escaped murderer Al Walker (William Holden) and his gang, including girlfriend Betty (Nina Foch). Collins, an advocate of rehabilitating criminals through psychiatry, induces his captor to talk about himself through the course of the night. By calmly and methodically piecing together the strands of the killer's unconscious motivation, Collins rids Walker of his literally murderous rage and prevents a massacre. Shrinks who practice in the noir universe are frequently painted as absurdly omnipotent. When not using their power for evil, like Dr. Cross (Vincent Price) in Aubrey Schenck's Shock (1949), they may be capable, like the benign Dr. Collins, of miracle cures. A more complex depiction of an unrealistically powerful, but ambiguously motivated, psychiatrist can be seen in Joseph Losey's The Sleeping Tiger (1954). In that British film, Dr. Clive Esmond (Alexander Knox) cures a criminal in a few short months but destroys his own marriage in the process. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide
Review
The Dark Past was undoubtedly a more powerful and effective film when it was first realized than it is when viewed today. The film's "psychological insight" now comes across as nothing more than simpleminded psychobabble, and the ability of the psychologist to cure a hardened, murderous criminal in a few short hours is so ludicrous that it cannot help but invoke laughter. Matters are not helped appreciably by dialogue that is often painful, or by the film's all-too-clear stage origins. The lack of variety in its settings, which could have created an appropriately claustrophobic atmosphere, instead merely makes for a visually dull film. Fortunately, Past features a powerful, gutsy performance from William Holden and a quieter, more controlled but still mesmerizing one from Lee J. Cobb. These two performances, along with Nina Foch's gun moll, and the occasional trick from director Rudolph Maté, make the film worth catching. Neither Holden nor Cobb is giving his best performance, but each one is on his game here, pushing all the right buttons and using his considerable talents to spark life into this otherwise routine melodrama. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Cary O'Dell - Art Director, Jean Louis - Costume Designer, Rudolph Maté - Director, Viola Lawrence - Editor, George Duning - Composer (Music Score), Morris W. Stoloff - Musical Direction/Supervision, Joseph Walker - Cinematographer, Buddy Adler - Producer, Frank A. Tuttle - Set Designer, George Cooper - Sound/Sound Designer, Michael Blankfort - Screenwriter, Albert Duffy - Screenwriter, Philip MacDonald - Screenwriter, Malvin Wald - Screenwriter, Oscar Saul - Screenwriter, James Warwick - Play Author
A psychoanalyst and his young family and some friends are taken hostage by a gang led by an escaped killer Al Walker. The doctor gets the killer to talk to him in an attempt to find out the killer's unconscious motivation for his evil ways.
He relates a dramatic dream he's been having since childhood. Eventually, his crimes are traced back to his childhood and lack of parental guidance, and by the end of the night the doctor has calmed the killer's murderous rage and prevents any more killings.
