Cerco de odio

The Dark Past may very well have been a turning point in the career of William Holden. As you remember Holden had a dual contract with Columbia and Paramount and I'm sure Billy Wilder at Paramount must have seen The Dark Past before casting Holden in Sunset Boulevard. This B film for Columbia was unlike any of the 'smiling jim' roles that Holden had played up to now.

The Dark Past has only a 75 minute running time and was playing the bottom end of Columbia double bills when it first came out. It's a remake of another Columbia film Dark Past with Chester Morris in Holden's part as the escaped killer. The part of the psychiatrist played by Lee J. Cobb here was played by Ralph Bellamy in the previous production.

Cobb is now a police psychiatrist, but wasn't always; in fact as he relates in flashback he was a professor when he ran into Holden who was escaping from jail with his mob and his moll. They take refuge in Cobb's summer house where Cobb and family are entertaining guests.

Lee is as cool as he would be emerging from a refrigerator. He starts getting under Holden's skin with his training exposing the real cause of his killer personality. Most disarming in every sense of the word.

If it were only that easy. Still the film in its short run does keep one in suspense. A lot like the duel of minds between Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March in The Desperate Hours. Also look for a very good performance by Nina Foch as Holden's moll who unwittingly leads to her man's downfall when she asks Cobb to find out about a recurrent nightmare Holden has.

If a dose of Freud could only cure all bad behavior.

Preachy story explaining why juveniles turn to crime because of the failure of the system.

Lee J.Cobb is a crime psychologist with a conscience, who is taken prisoner at his weekend retreat by notorious bad boy Al Walker ( William Holden ). While Cobb's guests are guarded by Walker's accomplices, the two form an uneasy truce. This results in Cobb analysing Walker's recurring nightmare, which frees him from his torment and exorcises his vendetta against society. His crimes are traced back to his childhood and lack of parental guidance. The 'message' is conveniently simplistic for the less demanding viewer - society helps create criminals in the way that young offenders are treated by the authorities, and that criminal behaviour in some cases should be treated as an illness not a crime.

While few would dispute there is some truth in this, the film thrusts this idea clumsily and implausibly. 'The Dark Past' is basically dull. Totally forgettable were it not for the presence of the two leads who acquit themselves adequately with the poor material.

The return of variously shell-shocked, amnesiac or otherwise afflicted soldiers from the front precipitated a spate of postwar movies purporting to delve into the mysteries of the human psyche. In most cases, psychology was presented either as a sinister black art (to be viewed with the utmost suspicion) or in a laughingly simplistic way. The Dark Past, grindingly earnest, opts for the latter path. Wrong'un William Holden, visibly chafing under the constraints of the script, invades a home and holds its occupants -- family and guests -- hostage. He has the bad luck to find among them psychoanalyist Lee J. Cobb, puffing away at the inevitable pipe, who turns the ordeal into a teaching opportunity. Slowly he breaks down Holden's wall of defenses, until a childhood memory emerges....This Freudian breakthrough, of course, occurs in record time, though for viewers it may seem like a big chunk of eternity. Mercifully, Adele Jergens sashays in and out a few times to lower the picture's tone to tolerable. The Dark Past is a period-piece, of some interest to fans of the noir cycle, but its stagey insights and dated dramaturgy have not aged gracefully.

The Dark Past is directed by Rudolph Maté and adapted by Malvin Wald, Oscar Saul, Philip MacDonald, Michael Blankfort and Albert Duffy from the play Blind Alley written by James Warwick. It stars William Holden, Nina Foch, Lee J. Cobb, Adele Jergens, Stephen Dunne and Lois Maxwell. Music is by George Duning and cinematography by Joseph Walker.

Al Walker Breaks Jail!

One from a number of classic era Hollywood's ventures into Freudian thrillers. Here we have Holden as escaped convict Al Walker, who along with his loyal crew hold hostage psychologist Dr. Andrew Collins (Cobb) and his guests at the doctor's remote country retreat. With Walker clearly unstable of mind and often showing a cold blooded streak, the good doctor, the calmest man in the house, slowly tries to draw out of Walker the root of his murderous leanings.

James Warwick's play had already had a film adaptation in 1939 as Blind Alley (Charles Vidor), but such was the advent of film noir and crime films of similar ilk, the source material was ripe for a remake in the late 40s. Maté's film is doubly reliant on strong acting performances and strength of subject matter, the former is no problem at all, with Cobb methodically excellent, Holden twitchy and coiled spring like and Foch smooth foil for both of them.

The latter issue isn't totally successful, though, the picture is very talky anyway, but much of the psycho-babble talk about conscious states, dreams, sensor bands and damage childhoods is handled so matter of fact, it's never really convincing as narrative thrust and it slow builds to a finale that lacks dramatic oomph. It's annoying really because Maté paints it in light and shade and a dream sequence, stripped back to negative form, is surreal excellence and befitting the interesting core basics of the psychological issues on the page.

It's definitely worth a look by those interested in the Freud influenced entries in the film noir cycle, while fans of hostage dramas like The Desperate Hours and The Petrified Forest will enjoy the character dynamics on show. But it's not all it can be and the handling of the crime and mental health equation is just too short changed to matter. 6.5/10

As others have mentioned the new psychology era and traumatic war experiences had been analyzed to death even by 1948. However the performances make this well worth watching this seldom televised film.

William Holden is very believable as a tormented gangster. He hijacks a dinner party in the doctor's (Lee J. Cobb) hunting lodge. Basically the theme is routine, we have seen "Suddenly" and other similar films with people held hostage. Lee J. Cobb is again excellent as a psychiatrist probing the past of the criminal (Holden) why, what causes this behavior?.

My generation is just re-discovering actors such as Holden. It is unfortunate some cable companies STILL do not broadcast these films (Turner Classics is a must, for me anyway).

Nina Foch is also very good as Holden's girlfriend, attempting to help. Her fine performance contrasts with the two women servants tied in the basement,one screaming shrilly and seeming ridiculous.

I liked this better than "Spellbound"; this is a bit more pedestrian but true to life. It is easier to believe Lee J. Cobb as a psychiatrist (he was also the redeeming performance in the film "The Three Faces of Eve" also starring Joanne Woodward). Recommended for anyone who likes suspense and psychological drama. 8/10.