Build My Gallows High (Film Ink)

I enjoy reading the books that were adapted into classic noir movies. This one by Geoffrey Homes, a pen name for Daniel Mainwaring, is at the top of the film noir lists but was only recently brought back into print.

If you’ve seen the movie version, Out of the Past, as many times as I have, you’re going to have actors Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum in your head as you read the book. No fighting that. The story though is more complex and the characters more deeply developed than in the movie.

Rex Bailey (the Robert Mitchum character) is a former detective who is trying to leave his past behind him. He was involved with some pretty shady characters, notably Guy Parker, an ex-cop, who sends Joe Stefanos, hired hood, to fetch Bailey out of show more his bucolic life in Bridgeport, California where he owns a gas station and lives an anonymous small town life.

Bailey’s past has him on a leash. He was involved in a deadly conflict with his ex-partner, Jack Fisher, and, despite a potential plea of self-defense or even accidental shooting, he’s on the hook if the story about Fisher’s death gets into the wrong hands.

When Bailey answers his summons from Parker, he’s back into the mix with a collection of cynical, amoral characters, all plotting against one another in a game of multi-player chess that keeps you on your toes as a reader.

Bailey’s cleverness is matched by not just Parker, but professional gambler Whit Sterling and professional self-seeker Mumsie McGonigle (the Jane Greer character in the movie). Sterling and McGonigle have a past entwined with Bailey, and with Jack Fisher’s death.

Everybody’s trying to frame each other for murder, trying to recover lost money, and generally just trying to win. Some, especially Whit Sterling, just can’t give up on bad love. It’s really Whit’s obsession with Mumsie that sets things in motion.

Bailey of course is the protagonist, but this is noir. He’s not necessarily a good guy, even though we’re kind of rooting for him.

Bailey is a sympathetic character in part because of the novel’s framing story. Back in Bridgeport, Bailey has found the one impeccable character in the story, Ann Miller, and fallen in love with her. And she with him. The one thing that he needs to do in order to marry Ann and hopefully live happily ever after is to clean up his past and make good with Ann about it.

Actually there is another nearly impeccable character to genuinely root for . “The Kid” is Bailey’s second at the gas station and turns out to be a worthy second in his dealings with the collection of depraved souls he’s involved with.

Those are the main players, plus Jim Caldwell, Ann’s unrequited suitor in Bridgeport who, one way or another, is going to have to come to terms with Ann’s preference for Bailey.

The frame story, I think, rules the emotional course of the novel. Bailey’s motivation lies with Ann and the promise of a future with her. But it’s going to be an ugly mess getting there, if he ever does get there. show less

There is huge disagreement among film buffs, scholars, the general public, and marketers about what is and isn't film noir. (I'm of the more selective school that says that a film isn't noir just because it's in black-and-white and it's about crime. To me, noir, in a vast oversimplfication, means one thing about the protagonist: he's screwed. If your hero survives or wins the girl and solves the case, then there's a good chance it's not film noir. But, as I said, there's a lot of argument about that.

One thing no one seems to argue about, one film everyone seems to agree is not only film noir but the quintessential film noir is OUT OF THE PAST (1947). Everything people do agree on about noir is in this film, and in it just about show more perfectly. It's in my top ten films of all time list, and lots of other people's, too.

OUT OF THE PAST is based on the novel BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH, by Geoffrey Homes (a pseudonym for Daniel Mainwaring). It is as noir as the film, at least. It's plot is roughly the same, but it is a bit more tangled, more intricate, with a pair of antagonists who were combined in the film. The main character, Red Bailey (Jeff in the film), is a former private investigator caught up in the wreckage of a ten-year-old case, with revenge and a femme fatale of the first order dogging his heels. Homes writes poetically, yet with Hemingwayesque strength. The book is no longer than it needs to be, but is rich and evocative. If you've seen the film, the book will strike you as having been perfectly captured in the film, even with the plot adjustments. The same sense of place, of topography, of architecture fills the book. It's a wonderful book, now in my top ten favorite crime novels. show less

This book is noir at its best. The cover reads "the quintessence of doomladen romantic noir" which is no exaggeration.

Retired private eye, Red Bailey is happily living in Nevada, fishing and falling in love, and wants to leave his past in the past. Unfortunately he is coerced into performing one last job in order to do so. Fast forward to dead bodies left and right, double crossing femme fatales, dirty cops, and gangsters and you have the essentials of an excellent noir novel.

The excellent movie Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer was based on this novel, and this is one of those rare cases where both the book and the movie are excellent.

I highly recommend both.

Super! The first book I have ever read in which I saw the film (Out of the Past) first! The book & the film are almost identical with the exception of location & a few names in the novel! It was a page turner from the minute I opened it! A complete twist with a hard boiled character & a real seedy cast of dismal beings! I really think that the female character (femme fatale) was the first real "bad girl" of this pulp crime era. She is gritty & takes betrayal to an entirely different level! I couldn't help but to sympathize with the protagonist, being caught in a love triangle, heist, & a web of deceit! Even better was the ending, it was believable & a relief! Written with such wit, bringing out the darkness in every character that show more crosses the page! Extremely entertaining, it is short & an easy read! I have read it twice this month! I would recommend it! show less

Ex private eye Red bailey thinks his past is finally laid to rest, but then an old friend looks him up and offers him one last job, one that cannot refuse. Written in 1947, this was his final novel before he concentrated solely on screen writing (his films include Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and it is a blinder of a novel. All the noir tropes are here, perfectly presented: dirty cops, gangsters, femme fatales, snappy dialog, double crosses galore and a twisting plot. Mainwaring gloriously entwines the past and present so the setup leaks out slowly, keeping the details hidden even if you 're aware that like a Greek tragedy this doesn't end happily. I highly recommend it for all fans of the genre but I reckon anyone would enjoy it.

I couldn't get into it.