Hamburg Noir

HISTORY

Build My Gallows High

Book
Build My Gallows High (Geoffrey Homes, 1946)

Film
Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

This hardboiled pulp became what many say is the best noir film ever made. Why? Both the book and the screenplay were written Daniel Mainwaring, a Hollywood screenwriter who sometimes used the pen name Geoffrey Homes.

The book has all the ingredients of a classic hardboiled detective story: a complicated plot with lots of flashbacks and voiceover, a suave mob boss who is very Old Testament, a deaf mute called “the Kid” who serves as a moral compass, and a protagonist named “Red” who is torn between an innocent farm girl who is good for him and a beautiful femme fatale who is not. It’s a morality tale about a private eye who tries to escape his dark, double-dealing past by running a gas station in a small, idyllic town, only to be pulled back into the big-city world of betrayal, corruption, and murder.

By the end of the first chapter, it’s clear that Red is being set up in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. A crooked lawyer in New York, who’s been blackmailing Red’s former employer, a gangster with a longstanding grudge against Red, is going to get killed, and Red is going to be the fall guy. The new, clean life Red has tried to build for himself is over.

The well-named film adaptation, Out of the Past, which was co-authored by James M. Cain, ups the ante with casting that looks inevitable in retrospect. Kirk Douglas’ cheerful clenched-jawed slurring makes every sentence sound like a threat, which it often is. Robert Mitchum’s laconic walk and talk demonstrate his moral ambivalence, something echoed by his real-life reputation. And Jane Greer is the deceptively innocent bad girl, whose mesmerizing looks and smokey voice disguise her lust for blood and money -- until it’s too late.

Like many hardboiled pulps of the time that were serialized in magazines like Black Mask, the book is mercifully short, but it packs a vicious punch. Although the film changes some character names (for good reason: it’s difficult to imagine Mitchum being called “Red”) and plot lines, the essential elements of the book are in the film.

The former provides insight into Red’s thoughts: “A dummy, people called him. Red wished that all men including himself were as intelligent. The ears might not hear and the lips might not speak, but eternal silence seemed to give the Kid second sight.”

The book and the film approach this key insight from different angles, but the core message is the same. Red knows the Kid’s right and he’s wrong. As a classic anti-hero, Red accepts his own fatal mistakes and the ultimate price he has to pay. This harsh lesson is softened a bit in the film. At the end, the Kid manages to right the moral order -- for those still among the living -- with a simple gesture. It’s a powerful moment.