Out of the Past

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), with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M. Cain.

Out of the Past is considered one of the greatest films noirs. Its complex, fatalistic storyline, darkcinematography and classic femme fatale garnered the film critical acclaim and cult status. 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.