Out of the Past

Out of the Past (billed in the United Kingdom as Build My Gallows High) is a 1947 American film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. The film was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring (using the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes) from his 1946 novel Build My Gallows High (also written as Homes), with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M. Cain. Its complex, fatalistic storyline, dark cinematography, and classic femme fatale garnered the film critical acclaim and cult status. In 1991, the National Film Preservation Board at the Library of Congress added Out of the Past to the United States National Film Registry of “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” films. Joe Stefanos arrives in Bridgeport, California, a rural mountain town, seeking Jeff Bailey, who owns a local gas station. Bailey is fishing with Ann Miller. They are in love. (Her lifelong friend Jim is jealous.) The Kid, Jeff's deaf-mute employee and friend, interrupts them, signing to Jeff. At the station, Stefanos tells Jeff that he must go to Lake Tahoe to meet "Whit." Jeff invites Ann to ride with him. He tells her about his past in a flashback. Bailey's real last name is Markham. He and Jack Fisher were partners, private investigators in New York. Whit Sterling, a gambling kingpin, hires Markham—solo—to find Whit's girlfriend, Kathie Moffat, who shot him and stole $40,000. Whit promises she will not be harmed. Jeff eventually corners Kathie in Acapulco. She seduces him. She admits that she shot Whit, but denies taking his money. Eventually, Jeff proposes that they run away together. Whit and Stefanos arrive. Jeff says that Kathie is on a south-bound steamer. Whit instructs Jeff to keep looking for her. The couple goes to San Francisco. Fisher, now working for Whit, spots Jeff at the track. Jeff arranges to meet Kathie at a mountain cabin, but Fisher follows Kathie and tries to blackmail them. The two men brawl. Kathie deliberately kills Fisher and drives away, leaving behind a bank book showing a balance of$40,000.