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.

Adapted from Daniel Mainwaring’s provocatively titled novel Build My Gallows High (1946), Jacques Tourneur’s riveting noir is often ranked as one of the best of the genre. There are multiple reasons why Out of the Past is such an exemplary work, and in part has to do with how faithfully and inventively it adheres to the form, where themes of betrayal, corruption and fatalism are interwoven and entangled together in a perplexing and convoluted plot. Unlike most noirs, however, much of the drama is played out not in the typical confined corners of a shadowy city, but in broad daylight and natural settings – in this case, the sundrenched backdrops of Lake Tahoe and Puerto Vallarta. Throughout, cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca –who also filmed Tourneur’s Cat People (1942) – utilises stark imagery, contrasting the dark scenes of murder and treachery with stunning compositions of rural, wooded retreats.