Out of the Past

19471947
GG
1h 37m

8.0/10

Crime Drama Film-Noir

A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses and dupl... Read allA private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses and duplicitous dames.A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses and duplicitous dames.

8.0/10

35K

Director
- Jacques Tourneur
Writers
- Daniel Mainwaring(screen play by)
- James M. Cain(uncredited)
- Frank Fenton(uncredited)
Stars

Top credits

See production, box office & company info

See more at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win

Videos1

Trailer 2:29

Trailer

Robert Mitchum and Rhonda Fleming in Out of the Past (1947)

Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past (1947)

Robert Mitchum, Steve Brodie, and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947)

Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947)

Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947)

Director
- Jacques Tourneur
Writers
- Daniel Mainwaring(screen play by) (based on his novel "Build My Gallows High")
- James M. Cain(uncredited)
- Frank Fenton(uncredited)
All cast & crew
See more cast details at IMDbPro

Jeff Bailey, small-town gas pumper, has his mysterious past catch up with him one day when he's ordered to meet with gambler Whit Sterling. En route to the meeting, he tells girlfriend Ann his story. Flashback: Once, Jeff was a private eye hired by Sterling to find his mistress Kathie who shot Whit and absconded with $40,000. He traces her to Acapulco, where the delectable Kathie makes Jeff forget all about Sterling. Back in the present, Whit's new job for Jeff is clearly a trap, but Jeff's precautions only leave him more tightly enmeshed. —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

secret past double cross national film registry day for night assumed name 159 more

Taglines
- A MAN - Trying to run away from his past... A WOMAN - Trying to escape her future!
Genres
Certificate
- G
Parents guide

Trivia
Robert Mitchum told Roger Ebert he smoked so much that when the camera was rolling and Kirk Douglas offered him a pack and asked, "Cigarette?" Mitchum, realizing he'd carried a cigarette into the scene, held up his fingers and replied, "Smoking." His improvisation saved the take and they kept it in the movie.

Goofs
Leonard Eels' apartment at 114 Fulton Street would be part of the block then occupied by the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library (now the Asian Art Museum).

Quotes
[Kathie is playing roulette]
Jeff: That's not the way to win.
Kathie: Is there a way to win?
Jeff: There's a way to lose more slowly.

Alternate versions
Also available in a computer colorized version.

Connections
Edited into American Cinema: Film Noir (1995)

Soundtracks
The First Time I Saw You
(uncredited)
Music by Nathaniel Shilkret
From The Toast of New York (1937)
Used as main theme in score

Top review

Definitive Film Noir

This film established the Robert Mitchum screen persona. In it he established the easy going laconic style that was to become his trademark. His Jeff Bailey is the epitome of the 1940s tragic hero.

The story is told in flashback, a Film Noir tradition. Bailey owns a gas station in a small California town. But he is a man with a past, a past that comes back to haunt him(as in Hemingway's "The Killers")

Bailey tells us that he was a detective in his previous life. He was hired by a gambler to find a girl who had stolen $40,000 from him. Bailey found the girl and the money , but love got in the way.

To reveal anymore of this convoluted plot would ruin it for those who have not had the pleasure of not seeing this masterpiece.

In addition to Mitchum, the rest of the cast excels as well. Jane Greer is the perfect Femme Fatal. Kirk Douglas is mean and sadistic as the gambler. Rhonda Fleming, Virginia Huston, Steve Brodie and Paul Valentine provide excellent support.(Greer and Valentine were in the 1985 remake "Against the Odds".

Jacques Tourneur one of the great Noir directors does a fine job with Daniel Mainwaring's story and script(using the pseudonym Geoffery Homes) and the Roy Webb music is the perfect compliment.

A lot of young talent went into the making of this classic. Many of the people involved went on to bigger and better things. It is easy to understand why.

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