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

By the first 10 minutes of the film, I thought I was going to see another creation to "The Desperate Hours."A psychiatrist, his wife, son and guests are held hostage by a depraved killer- William Holden.The film became absolutely too preachy. In such a grave situation, a psychiatrist would not try to psychoanalyze his captor. He would just try to keep him calm so as to avoid the shooting from beginning.Nina Foch is terribly miscast as Holden's moll. When an icy Holden puts a bullet in the back of the warden after dropping him off, Foch calmly says,"Al, dear, did you really have to do that." We needed more of a hard-boiled character.In a film with a story line calling for violence, there is practically nothing going on here.The only live captive person is Katherine Card, a veteran old-timer, who plays a maid challenging her captors and who eventually escapes. Ellen Corby is annoying as the other whining, hysterical maid.In the end, we're almost subjected to everyone is basically good, and all need appropriate guidance. Guidance was needed for the writers and director of this extremely liberal hogwash.

I've read every review I could find on this movie, which I just saw for the first time last night. I was looking for something that viewed Dr. Collins' cabin, all three stories of it, as something akin to the id, ego and superego of Al Walker's mind. I could just about see the killer's girlfriend - the only character with access to all three stories - as meant to symbolize his anima (his feminine side), the Collins child as the killer's own inner child, etc. Even the killer's stooges seemed to represent the "censor band" of the psyche, determined to keep each element on its own floor. And of course the "household help," imprisoned in the basement, could easily represent anger and fear in the id, the lizard brain part of the unconscious mind. One of the two maids is really ticked off and the other can't stop crying. Plus one escapes and set the climax in motion, not so long after Dr. Collins lectures Al Walker about how hard it is for the censor band to keep all the unconscious stuff under wraps. Toward the end, all I could think about was how cool it would be if Woody Allen did a remake.

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.......