The Dark Past is a 1948 American film noir psychological thriller film starring William Holden, Nina Foch, and Lee J. Cobb. Directed by Rudolph Maté, the Columbia Pictures release is a remake of Blind Alley (1939), also released by Columbia, and based on a play by American dramatist James Warwick. Plot Police psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Collins (Lee J. Cobb) tells a detective that he believes that he can help to turn a young suspect away from crime. Through an extended flashback he illustrates his claim with the story of how he came to work for the police. While Collins (at the time a college professor), his wife, and son head to their vacation cabin, prison escapee and convicted murderer Al Walker (William Holden) and his small gang flee towards the very same secluded cove. Along the way Walker gratuitously shoots the warden he had held hostage in the back, raising eyebrows around him. Collins is entertaining three guests when Walker, his girlfriend Betty (Nina Foch), and two gunmen break in and hold everyone hostage while waiting for a pickup by boat. With the servants tied in the basement and the others upstairs guarded by Betty and the gangmen, Collins observes Walker's behavior downstairs closely, explaining that his profession has trained him to cure. When Fred Linder (Steven Geray), a colleague of Collins, comes to deliver a hunting rifle, he tells Collins about the prison escape but notices that someone is hiding behind a curtain. Pretending to leave, Linder grabs the rifle, but Walker struggles with him, wounding Linder. Throughout, Collins has repeatedly noticed that Walker, an extremely unintelligent, volatile man, is nonetheless drawn to some of his books on psychoanalysis and the subconscious. Betty, who is told to watch Collins while Walker fitfully sleeps, tells the professor that Walker is prone to nightmares (visualized in negative film images) where he is standing under a leaking umbrella with a paralyzed hand and trapped behind bars. Walker awakens Collins to suggest analyzing his dreams, and Walker agrees. With Collins' guidance, Walker remembers a scene from his childhood where he hid under a table in a bar and witnessed his father being shot to death by police. The trauma was intensified because the young Walker had told the police where to find him, and because the boy’s hand was covered with his father's blood, which leaked through the table above him. Collins tells