Out of the Past

This is the perfect companion for a tour of the moody, ominous, violent underbelly of American moviemaking. Poet and novelist Barry Gifford writes with a connoisseurs insight and an offbeat sensitivity perfectly tailoredfrom James Cagneys fiery Oedipal apotheosis at the climax of the gangster pic White Heat to James Deans embodiment of teenage anomie in Rebel Without a Cause to Walter Matthaus low-rent authority as a small-timer in Charley Varrick. Among the hundred films discussed here are such seldom-seen triumphs of eccentric menace as The Devil Thumbs a Ride, such eerie portraits of American paranoia as the Cold Warera Shack Out on 101, and such bizarrely violent episodes as Gun Crazy. As Dow Mossman and Ed Gorman note in their introduction, these films plot the cinematic fever chart of the American dream.