Out of the Past

Out of the Past (released in Britain as Build My Gallows High) is a 1947 film noir in which a small-town man tells his girlfriend of his mysterious past as they travel to meet someone who may ruin their lives. It stars Robert Mitchum as that man and Jane Greer as the femme fatale.

The movie was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes), Frank Fenton (uncredited) and James M. Cain (uncredited) from the novel Build My Gallows High by Mainwaring (as Homes). It was directed by Jacques Tourneur and released by RKO Radio Pictures.

The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The film is considered by film historians to be a superb example of film noir, because of its convoluted, dreamlike storyline and its impeccably chiaroscuro cinematography (the film was shot by the cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, who also shot Tourneur's Cat People (1942) and The Leopard Man (1943)).

Out of the Past was remade as Against All Odds in 1984.

Main Cast

• Robert Mitchum
• Jane Greer
• Kirk Douglas
• Rhonda Fleming
• Richard Webb
• Steve Brodie

External links

• Out of the Past at Movie Tome
• Shades of Black and Brown: Visions of Mexico and Mexican-Americans in 1940s Film Noir

See also: Out of the Past, 1942 in film, 1943 in film, 1947 in film, 1984 in film, Against All Odds, Bridgeport, California, Cat People, Femme fatale