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• Out of the Past

4/4/26 (Sat)

Jacques Tourneur’s classic 1947 noir was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring (under a pseudonym) and others from his 1946 novel, Build My Gallows High, a phrase that appears memorably in the movie script. I was surprised to see Kirk Douglas as a featured performer rather than the star, but those were early days.

A former detective (a supremely aloof Robert Mitchum) has left the business and taken on a new name and life in a rural California town. Though he wants to leave the past behind, it won’t leave him: a mobster in LA (Douglas, great) summons Mitchum to see him. Having been tracked down, Mitchum has to confess his identity and background to his fiancée and, thus, to us.

Three years earlier, Douglas sought help in finding his girlfriend (Jane Greer), who is on the lam after shooting him and stealing $40,000. He promises not to hurt her; he simply wants her back, for reasons that he tells Mitchum will be apparent. After some sleuthing, Mitchum traces her to Acapulco and is immediately smitten. She admits shooting Douglas but denies stealing his money, and uses her charms to win Mitchum to her side. They run off together to San Francisco, but are eventually spotted by one of Douglas’ men, who traces them to their hideaway and tries to blackmail them. As the men fight, Greer shoots the man and drives off, leaving Mitchum with the dead body. It is at that point that Mitchum takes on a new identity running a gas station in the small town.

The story shifts back to the present. Mitchum goes to the mobster and is surprised to see Greer, who has told the entire story to Douglas. (Douglas must be very forgiving to take back the woman who shot him and the man who ran off with his woman. But as he says, “My feelings? About ten years ago, I hid them somewhere and haven’t been able to find them.”) Douglas now wants Mitchum to retrieve some dodgy tax records being used as blackmail by a slimy lawyer. Mitchum reluctantly agrees. Greer then secretly tries to win her way back into Mitchum’s graces, but he tells her to get lost. (“Can’t you even feel sorry for me?” “I’m not even going to try.”)

Mitchum finds the lawyer’s secretary, yet another beautiful woman (Rhonda Fleming). She tells him to come to the lawyer’s home that night. Mitchum smells a trap but goes anyway. He warns the lawyer that his life may be in danger, but the latter shrugs it off. When Mitchum returns to the apartment later, he sees the secretary slipping out of the building with a briefcase (presumably containing the tax records). He enters the apartment to find the lawyer’s lifeless body. Knowing that he is being set up as the murderer, he disposes the body in a closet. He sneaks into Fleming’s apartment, only to see Greer enter, meaning she is part of the plot. Pretending to be the secretary, she calls the lawyer’s building manager to ask him to check up on the lawyer. She is shocked to learn that no body was found there.

Mitchum confronts her, realizing that she and the secretary were trying to pin the murder on him. She confesses to signing an affidavit saying that Mitchum killed the earlier man, but says that she was coerced. That affidavit is now in the lawyer’s safe in place of the tax records – meaning that Mitchum will now be suspected of two murders.

Further twists and turns are to come, right down to a truly shocking final scene when Greer realizes that Mitchum, who has agreed to escape with her, has in fact planted a trap for her that ends up leaving both dead. In a coda, Mitchum’s fiancée goes to the deaf mute who worked at the gas station and asks if he thinks Mitchum was really running off with the woman. The boy surprisingly indicates that that is so. The fiancée leaves sadly as the film closes.

The plot is dizzying, and I’m not sure I caught everything. But it works on the strength of the sharply defined characters and the actors, who were all perfectly matched. Mitchum was apparently not the first actor considered for the role, but his distant, unflustered cool (“Don’t you believe me?” “Baby, I don’t care”) makes it hard to imagine anyone else. While he benefited from a hugely quotable script, his delivery was priceless (“I’m sorry he didn’t die.” “Give him time”). Douglas was every bit his equal as the confident mobster. The summary above doesn’t do justice to his role, which he made his own. He must have been a relative newcomer given his billing, but I doubt he stayed that way after this performance. The surprise was Greer, the femme fatale (emphasis on the latter) who was utterly compelling in her ever-shifting loyalties and way with a gun. She makes the most of a spectacular entrance, vying with Rita Hayworth’s Gilda. I’m not familiar with her work, but this was an Oscar-worthy showing. (The film incredibly got no nominations at all that year. Greer played the character’s mother in the 1984 remake, Against All Odds.)

While the dialogue can’t be called natural, it’s highly literate and great fun, especially as brought to life by this cast. “Oh, Jeff, you ought to have killed me for what I did.” “There’s time”  or  “You’re like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another”  or  “Women reduce all men to the obvious.” “So do martinis”  or   “A guy can’t even got shot in his apartment by a dame without the whole town starting to buzz.” “Smoke a cigarette, Joe”  or  “I wondered what happened to him, then there’s his name on a sign.” “It’s a small world.” “Yeah, or a big sign.”  I’m not a big fan of narration, which the writers lean on to set the story, and some of those lines seem almost parodic. But once the dialogue gets going, they’re on firmer ground. The opening is too close to the previous year’s noir The Killers to be coincidence, but hard to complain when it’s as well done as here.

Tourneur maintains a steady hand throughout with moody lighting and great set pieces. The most inventive is when the deaf boy throws his fishing line and hooks the would-be murderer on the cliff, causing him to fall to his death. The plot and motives are not always easy to follow, but it’s an enjoyable ride. Deserving of its accolades.