TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : ****Excellent ***Good **Fair *Poor : VIDEOCASSETTES

“Out of the Past.” Nostalgia Merchant. $19.95. If you have any taste for film noir-- that Chandler-esque American style that had its heyday in the ‘40s and ‘50s--this film is a must: one of the classics of the genre. The young Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas are both great--as a sleepily cynical, despairing hero-on-the-run, and a classically ruthless rich heel, respectively--and Jane Greer is a femme fatale to make you crawl the walls. Most fascinating of all is the film’s mood. Director Jacques Tourneur, working from Daniel Mainwaring’s excellent script, gives it delicacy, repressed passion, inexorable fate and shadowy grace--like satin over brass knuckles. (The 1984 remake, “Against All Odds,” has fine actors, but isn’t comparable in any other sense.) Information: (800) 421-4509. ****