Out of the Past Jacques Tourneur

Out of the Past (billed in the United Kingdom as Build My Gallows High) is a 1947 American film noir by director Jacques Tourneur and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas. The film was adapted by Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring) from his 1946 novel Build My Gallows High (also written as Homes),[1] with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M. Cain.[2]

Out of the Past is considered one of the greatest of all films noir.[2][3][4][5] Its complex, fatalistic storyline, dark cinematography and classic femme fatale garnered the film critical acclaim and cult status.[1] In 1991, the National Film Preservation Board at the Library of Congress selected Out of the Past for preservation to the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” along with 24 other films.[6][7][8]

Joe Stefanos drives to the rural mountain town of Bridgeport, California, seeking Jeff Bailey, who owns a local gas station. Joe asks a deaf-mute kid where Jeff is. The kid finds Jeff fishing with his girlfriend, Ann Miller. Joe tells Jeff that Whit Sterling wants to see him in Lake Tahoe. Jeff acquiesces and takes Ann to ride along and tell her about his past.

Jeff reveals that his real surname is Markham, and three years ago he was partners with Jack Fisher in New York City as private eyes. Gambling kingpin Whit hired Markham to track down Whit's girlfriend Kathie Moffat, who shot Whit and stole $40,000 from him. Assured by Whit that she will not be harmed, Jeff tracked Kathie to Acapulco and was struck by her beauty. Surprised that Whit was alive, Kathie admitted to shooting him, but denied stealing. They quickly fell in love; when Whit and Stefanos arrived unannounced in Acapulco to check on Jeff's progress, Jeff lied and said he never found Kathie, which seemed to satisfy Whit. Jeff and Kathie then escaped to San Francisco and lived there for several months before Fisher spotted Jeff and tracked them to a mountain cabin. There, Fisher and Jeff brawled before Kathie shot Fisher dead and ran away, leaving behind a bankbook showing a $40,000 deposit.

Ann drops Jeff off at Whit's estate, where Whit inveigles Jeff into another job. Jeff is surprised to see Kathie there as Whit's lover again, but she later claims to him that she had no choice but to return. She indicates that Whit knows about their time with together but nothing about murdering Fisher. Jeff scornfully rejects her.

Whit explains that San Francisco lawyer Leonard Eels has helped him dodge $1,000,000 in taxes but is now blackmailing him for $200,000. Whit orders Jeff to meet with Eels's secretary, Meta Carson, who explains the plan to recover the incriminating records. Suspecting a frame, Jeff still joins her at Eels's apartment. Jeff trails Meta, who retrieves the records. He returns to Eels's apartment and finds Eels dead, then hides the body.

Jeff sneaks into Meta's apartment and overhears Kathie arranging for the discovery of Eels's body. When no corpse is found, she believes Eels escaped. Jeff confronts Kathie, who claims she signed an affidavit for Whit swearing that Jeff killed Fisher. She suggests rekindling their romance and he leaves. Stefanos arrives, assuring Kathie that he killed Eels. Jeff retrieves the documents as collateral for getting the affidavit.

When Kathie and Meta arrive at Eels' apartment to retrieve the affidavit, the police are already there. Jeff mails the tax records to himself before Whit's thugs capture him and discover he no longer has the incriminating documents. Kathie phones Whit.

Being wanted for the murders of Fisher and Eels, Jeff seeks cover in Bridgeport. Kathie directs Stefanos to trail the kid, which leads to a gorge where Jeff is hiding. The kid spots Stefanos poised to shoot Jeff and hooks him with a fishing line, pulling him to his death. Jeff returns to Whit's mansion, informing him about Stefanos' death and Kathie's double-cross. Jeff offers to return the records if Whit destroys Kathie's affidavit and surrenders her to police for Fisher's murder. Whit accepts, threatening to kill Kathie if she does not cooperate.

Jim, Ann's childhood friend and beau displaced by Jeff, trails him to a meeting with Ann. Ann believes in Jeff but asks if he is absolutely sure of what he wants. He says he is, and she promises to wait for him.

Jeff finds Whit, murdered by Kathie, who insists Jeff run away with her or be framed for all three murders. While she packs, Jeff makes a phone call. Jeff drives them away, but seeing he has arranged a police roadblock, Kathie shoots him dead. She fires at the police, and is killed in the return fire.

In Bridgeport, Jim asks Ann to leave town with him to avoid the scandal. Ann demurs. Privately, Ann asks the kid if Jeff was going away with Kathie. After a pause, he nods disingenuously. Ann gets into Jim's car.

• Robert Mitchum as Jeff Bailey, previously known as Jeff Markham
• Jane Greer as Kathie Moffat
• Kirk Douglas as Whit Sterling
• Rhonda Fleming as Meta Carson
• Richard Webb as Jim
• Steve Brodie as Jack Fisher
• Virginia Huston as Ann Miller
• Paul Valentine as Joe Stefanos
• Dickie Moore as The Kid
• Ken Niles as Leonard Eels

Daniel Mainwaring wrote Build My Gallows High while on retreat after writing six screenplays in one year. He had also tired of detective fiction, having written several novels featuring a sleuthing reporter named Robin Bishop.[9] The title for the novel originated in a poem,[10] believed by one scholar to be "Haman" from Benjamin Cutler Clark's The Past, Present, and Future (1867).[11]: 111  The poem is about Haman's machinations and includes the line, "At length a gallows high he swung, upon which all were to be hung..."[12]

A script reader at RKO Pictures recommended the novel as a "worthy addition to the rough, tough school of Chandler, Cain and Burnett...presents an almost perfect story for an actor like Bogart". William Dozier approved the purchase for $20,000, which included Mainwaring as screenwriter.[13]: 73  Gallup's Audience Research recommended that RKO change the title to Out of the Past. Warren Duff was unsure about Mainwaring's first draft. One of the problems was that The Kid narrated the film, which convoluted the structure. Duff paid James M. Cain $20,000 to rewrite it, but the second draft was so flawed that Duff hired Mainwaring again to finish the screenplay.[10]

Out of the Past was produced by RKO Pictures, and the key personnel—director Jacques Tourneur, cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, actors Mitchum and Greer, along with Albert S. D'Agostino's design group—were long-time RKO collaborators. Although the studio focused on making B-films during the early 1940s, the post–World War II Out of the Past was afforded a comparatively lavish budget.[14][15][16]

John Garfield and Dick Powell declined the lead role.[13] Kirk Douglas appears in his third credited screen performance, having made his critically noted debut in 1946's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. The next time that Mitchum and Douglas played major roles in the same picture occurred in the 1967 Western The Way West.[17]

The film earned a profit of $90,000.[13]

Out of the Past is considered one of the greatest of all films noir.[2][3][4][5] Robert Ottoson hailed the film in 1981 as "the ne plus ultra of forties film noir".[18] In a contemporary review, The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther complimented the crime drama's direction and performances, although he did find the latter portion of the screenplay hard to follow:

...it's very snappy and quite intriguingly played by a cast that has been well and smartly directed by Jacques Tourneur. Robert Mitchum is magnificently cheeky and self-assured as the tangled 'private eye,' consuming an astronomical number of cigarettes in displaying his nonchalance. And Jane Greer is very sleek as his Delilah, Kirk Douglas is crisp as a big crook and Richard Webb, Virginia Huston, Rhonda Fleming and Dickie Moore are picturesque in other roles. If only we had some way of knowing what's going on in the last half of this film, we might get more pleasure from it. As it is, the challenge is worth a try.[19]

The staff of the widely read trade publication Variety also gave it a positive review upon release:

Out of the Past is a hardboiled melodrama [from the novel by Geoffrey Homes] strong on characterization. Direction by Jacques Tourneur pays close attention to mood development, achieving realistic flavor that is further emphasized by real life settings and topnotch lensing by Nicholas Musuraca...Mitchum gives a very strong account of himself. Jane Greer as the baby-faced, charming killer is another lending potent interest. Kirk Douglas, the gangster, is believable and Paul Valentine makes his role of henchman stand out. Rhonda Fleming is in briefly but effectively."[20]

In The Nation in 1948, James Agee wrote, "Out of the Past is a medium-grade thriller ... Fairly well played, and very well photographed ... the action develops a routine kind of pseudo-tension ... Robert Mitchum is so very sleepily self-confident with the women that when he slopes into clinches you expect him to snore in their faces."[21]

In his 2004 assessment of the film for the Chicago Sun-Times, critic Roger Ebert noted:

Out of the Past is one of the greatest of all film noirs, the story of a man who tries to break with his past and his weakness and start over again in a town, with a new job and a new girl. The film stars Robert Mitchum, whose weary eyes and laconic voice, whose very presence as a violent man wrapped in indifference, made him an archetypal noir actor. The story opens before we've even seen him, as trouble comes to town looking for him. A man from his past has seen him pumping gas, and now his old life reaches out and pulls him back.[5]

With regard to the production's stylish and moody cinematography, Ebert also dubbed the film "The greatest cigarette-smoking movie of all time."[22]

...The trick, as demonstrated by Jacques Tourneur and his cameraman, Nicholas Musuraca, is to throw a lot of light into the empty space where the characters are going to exhale. When they do, they produce great white clouds of smoke, which express their moods, their personalities and their energy levels. There were guns in Out of the Past, but the real hostility came when Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas smoked at each other.[22]

In a 1989 review, Leslie Halliwell gave it two of four stars, stating: "Moody film noir with Hollywood imitating French models; plenty of snarling and a death-strewn climax."[23] Pauline Kael wrote in 1991, "A thin but well-shot suspense melodrama ... It's empty trash, but you do keep watching it."[24] TCM Noir Alley host and author Eddie Muller lauded the film in 2021: "Mainwaring's serpentine story is all about mood and movement, dreamily winding its way through various locations, shifting rhythms, seducing the audience toward the black hole at its heart. It nailed the bull's-eye and its reverberations linger after repeated viewings: guilt, duplicity, self-deception, and the lonely hero's need to push it to the bitter end, tempting fate once too often."[25]

The film holds a score of 87% on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 82 reviews. Its consensus summarizes: "Anchored by a wistful Robert Mitchum, Out of the Past is an exemplary noir steeped in doom and sensuality."[26] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[27]

Out of the Past was remade as Against All Odds (1984) with Rachel Ward in the Greer role, Jeff Bridges playing the Jeff Markham- inspired role, and James Woods as a variation of Kirk Douglas' villain, with Jane Greer as the mother of her original character in Out of the Past and Richard Widmark in a supporting role.[28]

On November 14, 1987, Mitchum guest hosted Saturday Night Live. Greer made a surprise appearance in a gag sequel called "Out of Gas," in which their characters met again 40 years later at a filling station.

• List of cult films

1. ^ a b Handler, David (August 13, 2019). "The Unsung Godfather of Film Noir". CrimeReads. Literary Hub. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
2. ^ a b c "Top 10 film noir". The Guardian. November 29, 2013. Retrieved November 24, 2022.
3. ^ a b Ballinger, Alexander; Graydon, Danny (2007). The Rough Guide to Film Noir. Rough Guides reference guides. London: Rough Guides. pp. 56, 151–52. ISBN 978-1-84353-474-7. OCLC 78989518.
4. ^ a b Schatz 1999, p. 364
5. ^ a b c Ebert, Roger (July 18, 2004). "Out of the Past (1947)". Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times Media Group. Retrieved February 1, 2008.
6. ^ Andrews, Roberts M. (October 11, 1991). "25 Films Designated For Preservation". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Lee Enterprises.
7. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
8. ^ "Out of the Past" (PDF). Library of Congress. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
9. ^ Smith, Kevin Burton. "Robin Bishop", The Thrilling Detective. Accessed April 15, 2025.
10. ^ a b Flinn, Tom. "DANIEL MAINWARING ON "OUT OF THE PAST"." Velvet Light Trap, vol. 10, 1973. 44–5.
11. ^ Scruggs, Charles. "Out of the Black Past: The Image of the Fugitive Slave in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past." African American Review, vol. 44, no. 1, 2011. 97-113, 329.
12. ^ Clark, B (Benjamin Cutler). The Past, Present, and Future. In Prose and Poetry. Toronto: Adam Stevenson, & Co., 1867. 51.
13. ^ a b c Richard B. Jewell, Slow Fade to Black: The Decline of RKO Radio Pictures, University of California, 2016.
14. ^ Schatz 1999, p. 173, table 6.3.
15. ^ Crafton, Donald (1997). The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926–1931. History of the American cinema, volume 4. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 210. ISBN 0-684-19585-2. OCLC 37608321.
16. ^ Hagopian, Kevin. "Out of the Past". New York State Writers Institute.
17. ^ Server, Lee. Robert Mitchum: "Baby I Don't Care". St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2002. 408.
18. ^ Ottoson, Robert (1981). A Reference Guide to the American Film Noir, 1940-1958. Metuchen, N.J., and London: Scarecrow Press. p. 132. ISBN 0-8108-1363-7. OCLC 6708669.
19. ^ Crowther, Bosley (November 26, 1947). "Out of the Past (1947)". The New York Times. Retrieved February 1, 2008.
20. ^ Out of the Past review, Variety, December 31, 1946. Last retrieved June 5, 2022.
21. ^ Agee, James (1969). Agee on Film Volume 1. The Universal Library.
22. ^ a b Ebert, Roger (February 26, 1999). "200 Cigarettes". Chicago Sun-Times – via RogerEbert.com.
23. ^ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). Grafton Books. ISBN 0-06-016322-4.
24. ^ Kael, Pauline (1991). 5001 Nights at the Movies. A William Abrahams/Owl Book. ISBN 0-8050-1366-0.
25. ^ Muller, Eddie (2021). Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir. Running Press. ISBN 978-0-7624-9896-3.
26. ^ "Out of the Past". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 7, 2026.
27. ^ "Out of the Past". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved November 24, 2025.
28. ^ "Reviews: Against All Odds". rogerebert.com. January 1, 1984.

Bibliography

• Eagan, Daniel (2010). Out of the Past. America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry. A&C Black. pp. 406–408. ISBN 0826429777.
• Schatz, Thomas (1999) [1997]. Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s. History of the American cinema, volume 6. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22130-3. OCLC 40907588.

• Out of the Past at IMDb
• Out of the Past at AllMovie
• Out of the Past at the TCM Movie Database (archived)
• Out of the Past at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Out of the Past at Filmsite.org
• San Francisco in Cinema: Out of the Past
• Out of the Past at Moderntimes.com (archived)
• Out of the Past by Stephanie Zacharek at the National Film Registry