best movie i've ever seen.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

William Holden plays a troubled prison inmate in Rudolph Maté's claustrophobic thriller "The Dark Past" who takes a college professor and his guests hostage after he breaks out of stir. This represents one of the few examples of Holden cast as a villain but taking top billing over his heroic co-star Lee J. Cobb. Instead of Holden as the hero, Cobb is hero, a shrewd but open-minded police psychiatrist who relies on his fearless intelligence to get himself out of a dangerous predicament. The liberal minded "Dark Past" isn't so much a 'crime doesn't pay' movie as much as it is 'crime can be prevented' movie. Unfortunately, more dialogue than shooting occurs here, but the psychological process of unraveling a murderer's mind compensates for the talkative script. The villains' lack of vigilance, particularly on the part of the henchmen, is what gets them in hot water. A compassionate police psychiatrist, Dr. Andrew Collins (Lee J. Cobb of "Lawman"), attends the morning line-up of offenders at the police station. He takes an interest in an embittered 18-year old criminal, John Larrapoe (Harry Harvey Jr.), who has been arrested for armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and resisting arrest. Collins wants to intervene in Larrapoe's behalf because he thinks that the youth doesn't know the way the system works. He wants to send Larrapoe to the psychiatric ward of the county hospital for observation. Initially, the arresting officer, Williams (Robert B. Williams), who wears a bandage on his right temple where Larrapoe struck him when he resisted arrest, doesn't agree with Collins' recommendation. "Don't expect me to make that kind of recommendation in my report to the D. A.," Williams states. "There is nothing wrong with Larrapoe that a good stretch at hard labor won't cure," the detective argues. "He's a bad boy, mean all over." Collins refuses to give up on Larrapoe. "I don't want us hardening him into a hopeless criminal. He's young, something can be done for him while he is young. He's a sick boy, mentally and emotionally." Williams follows Collins into his office and Collins fills Williams in on his experience with a criminal named Al Walker (William Holden of "Born Yesterday") when he was a professor of psychiatry at a small university near the Canadian border. Thus concludes the first act of this melodrama.Collins plans to spend the weekend in the country. Collins owns a cabin by a lake and he takes his wife, Ruth (Lois Maxwell, who played the first Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond franchise) and his son Bobby (Robert Hyatt) with him. Bobby yearns to go hunting and fishing. Meanwhile, Walker has mysteriously broken out of prison. We know from the get-go that Walker is a ruthless felon because he displays no qualms about gunning down Warden Benson (Selmer Jackson) in cold blood after they set him a foot. Indeed, the exposition during a radio broadcast lets us know that Walker shot and killed two guards during his prison breakout. Anyway, they are heading to the lake where they are supposed to catch a ride in a boat with an accomplice. Although they have found an abandoned shack to hide out in until the boat arrives, Walker wants to take advantage of Collins and his guests. Walker believes that his accomplices and he can lay low with less chance of discovery by the police if they wait it out with Collins and company. The midpoint of this drama concerns a question and answer conversation between Collins and Walker (William Holden) about a recurring nightmare that has plagued the lawbreaker entire life. "I don't kill sick people," Dr. Andrew Collins informs Al Walker, "I cure them." Although it is officially a remake of Charles Vidor's "Blind Alley" (1939), "The Dark Past" reminded me of the home invasion thriller "The Desperate Hours" where Humphrey Bogart broke into Frederic March's house and held his family and him at gunpoint. Collins is a pretty cool customer as he psychoanalyzes the reluctant Walker. At one point, the exasperated Walker thrusts a revolver into Collins' stomach when he cannot understand the professor's line of questioning. Walker suffers from a nightmare that involves an abusive father and rain. Maté and scenarists Philip MacDonald, Michael Blankfort, and Albert Duffy keep the principals cooped up for about an hour in a loquacious yarn. For the record, "The Dark Past" is an adaptation of the James Warwick's play "Blind Alley." "A little understanding and guidance," Collins observes, "maybe we can salvage some of this waste." The problem with 'The Dark Past" is that Walker lets Collins get the upper hand and prevents him from killing ever again. William Holden is miscast as the murderous escaped convict, but Lee J. Cobb is quietly convincing as the assertive psychiatrist. Otherwise, the rest of the cast is credible. Nevertheless, Collins' ability to undermine Walker after he cures him seems far-fetched, given Walker's homicidal nature. On the whole, "The Dark Past" is an interesting, if somewhat fanciful yarn.

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.

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.

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.