A film noir from 1948 & directed by Rudolph Mate (D. O. A./The Violent Men) starring Lee J. Cobb & William Holden. Holden is an escaped convict who w/his gang & girl, played by Nina Foch, make it to a cabin where they meet Cobb, a criminal psychiatrist, who's entertaining some friends for the evening. Never giving a reason why he's there, Holden & company hold the rest of the denizens under lock & key (a couple of servants get tied up in the basement) but Cobb, seeing the anguish in Holden's behavior, puts on his shrink cap & begins to diagnose Holden for the remainder of the film while cops (who know he's in the vicinity & have set up roadblocks) tighten their noose on the culprits until the film's last moments. An interesting exercise in tension & suspense told through the prism of psychiatry (which was becoming more en vogue as maladies of the mind & their healing was becoming more common practice), Cobb & Holden become good place holders for the battle between the criminal & rational mind but without this story quirk, the premise kind of falls apart. Also starring Adele Jergens as one of the cabin guests & Miss Moneypenny herself, Lois Maxwell, as Cobb's wife.
Review of The Dark Past
