wes-connors During a criminal lineup, police psychiatrist Lee J. Cobb (as Andrew Collins) shows concern for snarling young Harry Harvey Jr. (as John Larrapoe). Young law-breakers go to jail and are schooled in the criminal lifestyle, instead of being rehabilitated and given a second chance. This causes Mr. Cobb to recall a memorable incident with hardened criminal William Holden (as Al Walker). A couple years ago, Cobb was a wealthy college professor. While at his country estate near the Canadian border, Cobb's dinner party was invaded and held hostage by Mr. Holden and his gang. Cobb notices Holden's troubled psyche, rooted in an unusual recurring dream, and tries to root out his criminal mind..."The Dark Past" offers a familiar plot, perhaps most successful in cinematic form as "The Desperate Hours" (1955) with Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March. Like that film, this particular story started life as a tense Broadway play. James Warwick's 1935 play is arguably better as "Blind Alley" (1939)...The story's intrigue is the psychological interplay between the leading men. Herein, Cobb gets the better of Holden in more ways than one. Cobb appears authentic alongside Holden, who grimaces and gazes. You miss the more subtle, alcohol-drenched cynic Holden would play so well. The exaggeration continues with obvious lighting, billowing curtains, dramatic angles and arty dream sequences. A dose of Freudian complexes mixes in to give director Rudolph Mate and his crew an overly gimmicky looking film. The cast is overcrowded with three servants, dinner party guests and a kid. As gangster Holden's love interest, pretty Nina Foch almost effective. The story's lesson is commendable.***** The Dark Past (1948/12/22) Rudolph Mate ~ William Holden, Lee J. Cobb, Nina Foch, Steven Geray

literati-2 As soon as I heard the opening narration, I realized that it was the voice of John Forsythe to which I was listening. After a few minutes,however, I thought that it might, in fact, be Lee J. Cobb doing the voice-over for his own character ... until the scene where Cobb is leaning back on his office chair, "reminiscing" ... and when the voice-over comes in, it's subtly (but clearly) different than Cobb's voice. I don't see Forsythe credited anywhere, yet I know that voice so well from the Charlie's Angels TV show, amongst many other things. I feel confident that it's Forsythe ... or am I having auditory hallucinations? ;) Does anyone have any information on this? I'd love to know if I'm right. Thanks, in advance.

fimimix I agree with most of the other reviewers: it's dated, but I enjoyed watching it late at night on TCM when the rest of TV is junk.It was interesting to see Lee J. Cobb do a laid-back role (Dr. Collins), when he usually plays a much darker character. Handsome and much younger William Holden ("Al" somebody) played the psycho, escaped convict-with-a-problem. How convenient he barges into psychiatrist "Dr. Collins'" weekend lodge-party and gets healed. During this process, we get the idea "Al" may have wanted to do sexier things with "mom" while dad is away. Nina Foch, as his mob-gal, plays a very smoothe lady, but her hand is always in her pocket, on her gun. No doubt, she'd rather have her hand in "Al's" pocket....the usual gimmicks are used in this movie as all of its genre do. Although it's a ho-hummer, I enjoyed it.Actually I have a ulterior motive in writing this: paired with it, a movie called "Suddenly" with Frank Sinatra and (somebody) Hayden. Frankie-Boy had just won an Oscar for "From Here to Eternity", and became an overnight acting-sensation; Hayden was an established actor. You will not find this film on IMDb: almost the same plot at "Past", except Sinatra is going to assassinate a US president, whose train is stopping in the tiny town of "Suddenly". It is based on Eisenhower's trips to Palm Springs (pre-US-1 'copters). After the film was edited, Sinatra was horrified to discover that Lee Harvey Oswald had seen it just before the JFK assassination. He demanded it be shelved, and won....big star, he was; most of his scenes were shot in one take. Therefore, if you ever run-across it, look at it - you'll be seeing an "old" movie become a "new". It's fairly done by rote, but interesting and gives us a notion of all the hullabaloo that happens when a US prez comes to town, in earlier times (usually by train). One of Sinatra's lines is: "They taught me to do it (kill), and I liked it". I say that a lot about teaching young soldiers to become instant killers.....gotta give this movie an 8.......

Robert J. Maxwell Vicious murderer William Holden and his gang break into the lodge of the pipe-smoking psychiatrist Lee J. Cobb, who is having guests. Holden and the gang hold them hostage. Holden, as it develops, is having some mental problems. Cobb quickly cures him and Holden is never able to fire a gun again and he is free of symptoms and nightmares and is led off peacefully to jail.It's a tough slog. Every piece of work has to be judged in terms of its period, we know, but this may have been fatigued even by 1950 standards. We had, after all, already had Hitchcock's "Spellbound", of which this is more or less a copy. These days, after a decade or two of "getting in touch with our feelings" (what does that MEAN?) it looks more dated and more schematic than ever.The Freudian version of psychoanalysis was the canon at the time. A psychiatrist had to read ALL of Freud's seventeen volumes of work and know them inside and out. And this story sticks to material that might be found in "Psychoanalysis for Dummies." Everything is laid out for the audience, beginning with the conscious and the unconscious, and later leading through a handbook of dream interpretation and even dabbling with the Oedipal complex, although that part isn't gone into to any great extent. Let's take into account the sensibilities of the audience. Let's just have Holden kill his father, steal his father's "gun", and live happily at home with his mother.The quick cure we see was always mythological. Just ask Woody Allan. Not that it hasn't been tried with psychoanalytic theory. When it became clear that very few people could afford to throw away a fortune on an unending psychoanalysis, psychiatrists developed other, shorter forms of treatment. One of them, William ("Wild Bill") Murphy invented sector therapy, which was a kind of psychoanalytic quick fix, a band aid rather than an psychological excavation. I lost track of the evaluative literature but sector therapy probably had the same success rate as its model.It would be nice to say that, despite the datedness of the material, it's well done, but that, alas, isn't the case. Rudolph Mate's direction is uninspired. The subplots are mechanical. The acting is perfunctory, though we have to say that Lee J. Cobb is a good psychiatrist. A little adventurous, true, but under the circumstances, such as having a pistol pressed against his belly -- well. Nina Foch is good as Holden's necessarily motherly girl friend too. William Holden gives the hammiest performance of his career, popping his eyes, grimacing, calling everything "screwy." Too bad. It has a fine noirish title -- "The Dark Past." But this past was prologue to nothing.