Product Details

• Actors: Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas, Lucile Watson, Janis Carter
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 29, 1992
• Run Time: 70 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6302270448
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #219,249 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "My Forbidden Past (1953) ... Robert Mitchum ... RKO Radio Pictures Film Noir", March 16, 2007

By 

J. Lovins "Mr. Jim" (Missouri-USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My Forbidden Past [VHS] (VHS Tape)

RKO Radio Pictures present "MY FORBIDDEN PAST" (1953) (81 mins/B&W) (Dolby digitally remastered) --- Starring Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas & Janis Carter --- Directed by Robert Stevenson and released in December 12, 1951, our story line and film, Barbara Beaurevel lives with her aunt and cousin in New Orleans in the late 1800's. In love with Mark Lucas, a research doctor at Tulane University, her plans to marry him are thwarted. Barbara's family is of the high society stratum, but her late grandmother was not in fact the connection with her is something Barbara's aunt is most anxious to conceal. When Barbara inherits a fortune from her grandmother's side of the family, she uses it to try and win back Mark --- Good cast in a well directed story.

Under Robert Stevenson (Director), Polan Banks (Producer), Sid Rogell (Executive Producer), Robert Sparks (Producer), Leopold Atlas (Screenwriter), Polan Banks (novel "Carriage Entrance"), Marion Parsonnet, Frederick Hollander (Original Score), Harry J. Wild (Cinematographer), George C. Shrader (Editor) - - - - the cast includes Robert Mitchum (Dr. Mark Lucas), Ava Gardner (Barbara Beaurevel), Melvyn Douglas (Paul Beaurevel), Lucile Watson (Aunt Eula Beaurevel), Janis Carter (Corinne Lucas), Gordon Oliver (Clay Duchesne), Basil Ruysdael (Dean Cazzley), Clarence Muse (Pompey), Walter Kingsford (Coroner), Jack Briggs (Cousin Philippe), Will Wright (Luther Toplady) - - - - - Film noir has sources not only in cinema but other artistic mediums as well...the low-key lighting schemes commonly linked with the classic mode are in the tradition of chiaroscuro and tenebrism, techniques using high contrasts of light and dark developed by 15th- and 16th-century painters associated with Mannerism and the Baroque...film noir's aesthetics are deeply influenced by German Expressionism, a cinematic movement of the 1910s and 1920s closely related to contemporaneous developments in theater, photography, painting, scultpture, and architecture...opportunities offered by the booming Hollywood film industry and, later, the threat of growing Nazi power led to the emigration of many important film artists working in Germany who had either been directly involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners...Directors such as Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, and Michael Curtiz brought dramatic lighting techniques and a psychologically expressive approach to mise-en-scène with them to Hollywood, where they would make some of the most famous of classic noirs. Lang's 1931 masterwork, the German M, is among the first major crime films of the sound era to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir-type plot, one in which the protagonist is a criminal (as are his most successful pursuers). M was also the occasion for the first star performance by Peter Lorre, who would go on to act in several formative American noirs of the classic era ... featuring top performances from the '40s and '50s with outstanding drama and screenplays, along with a wonderful cast and supporting actors to bring it all together ... another winner from the vaults of almost forgotten film noir gems

SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:
1. Robert Mitchum
Date of Birth: 6 August 1917 - Bridgeport, Connecticut
Date of Death: 1 July 1997 - Santa Barbara, California

2. Ava Gardner
Date of Birth: 24 December 1922 - Brogden, North Carolina
Date of Death: 25 January 1990 - Westminster, London, England, UK

3. Robert Stevenson (Director)
Date of Birth: 31 March 1905 - Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK
Date of Death: 30 April 1986 - Santa Barbara, California

Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc), Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") and Trevor Scott (Down Under Com) as they have rekindled my interest once again for Film Noir, B-Westerns and Serials --- looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '20s, '30s & '40s and B-Westerns ... order your copy now from Amazon where there are plenty of copies available on VHS, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure --- if you enjoyed this title, why not check out VCI Entertainment where they are experts in releasing B-Westerns and Serials --- all my heroes have been cowboys!

Total Time: 81 min on VHS ~ Turner Home Video ~ (1/29/1992)