Out of the Past

Eternal icon of cool Robert Mitchum is at his sad-eyed, world-weary finest in OUT OF THE PAST (aka BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH), one of the true classics of postwar American film noir. Mitchum stars as existential antihero Jeff Markham, a retired private detective with a shady past who is hoping for a fresh start with a new name, a new love, and a new job running a small gas station in a rural California town. But Jeff's past comes back to haunt him in the guise of menacing gangster Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas, in only his second big screen role), who had hired Markham to track down his double-crossing moll, Kathie (Jane Greer, in definitive femme-fatale mode), after she had shot him and absconded with $40,000 of his money. The trio's entangled history is revealed via flashback and voice-over narration that includes some of the snappiest dialogue in film-noir history ("You're like an autumn leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another"), which, along with Jacques Tourneur's moody direction and Nicholas Musuraca's shadowy cinematography, underscore the story's tragic aura of fate and predestination.

Cast:

"With Jane Greer as the dame turning from wide-eyed honey to exterminating angel and Kirk Douglas ecstatically spiteful..." -- Uncut Staff , (Uncut)

"Douglas' brash dynamism gives contrast to Mitchum's still, watchful cool." -- Angie Errigo , (Empire)

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