The American movie posters for Out of the Past contained artwork showing a large head-and-shoulders close-up of Mitchum, cigarette dangling from his lips, and a smaller full-figure drawing of Greer. The advertising taglines used were: "A MAN - Trying to run away from his past... A WOMAN - Trying to escape her future! When they clash it's WILDFIRE!" and "A guy without a fortune! A girl with too much past!"

When asked in later years about the confusing storyline of Out of the Past, Robert Mitchum's standard response was that "two or three pages were lost in the mimeo department."

In England, the film was known as Build My Gallows High, the title of the novel on which it was based.

One of the memorable lines of the film, "Baby, I don't care," was used by author Lee Server for his 2001 biography of Robert Mitchum.

 

 

FAMOUS QUOTES from OUT OF THE PAST (1947)

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum): I sell gasoline, I make a small profit. With that, I buy groceries. The grocer makes a profit. We call it earning a living. You may have heard of it somewhere.

Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie): Ya know, a dame with a rod is like a guy with a knitting needle. 

Jeff Bailey: How big a chump can you get to be? I was finding out. 

Jeff Bailey: You say to yourself, "How hot can it get?" Then, in Acapulco, you find out. 

Jeff Bailey: Maybe love is like luck: you have to go all the way to find it. 

Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas): My feelings? About ten years ago, I hid them somewhere and haven't been able to find them. 

Whit Sterling: Joe couldn't find a prayer in the Bible. 

Jeff Bailey: You're like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another. 

Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer): Oh, Jeff, I don't want to die! 

Jeff Bailey: Neither do I, baby, but if I have to I'm going to be the one who dies last. 

Jeff Bailey: It was the bottom of the barrel, and I was scraping it. 

(Kathie is gambling at the roulette wheel) 

Jeff Bailey: That's not the way to win. 

Kathie Moffat: Is there a way to win? 

Jeff Bailey: There's a way to lose more slowly. 

Kathie Moffat: Don't you see you've only me to make deals with now? 

Jeff Bailey: Build my gallows high, baby. 

Ann Miller (Virginia Huston): She can't be all bad. No one is. 

Jeff Bailey: Well, she comes the closest. 

Jeff Bailey: I never saw her in the daytime. We seemed to live by night. What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoked. I didn't know where she lived. I never followed her. All I ever had to go on was a place and time to see her again. I don't know what we were waiting for. Maybe we thought the world would end. 

Ann Miller: They say the day you die your name is written in the clouds. 

Kathie Moffat: I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know anything except how much I hated him. But I didn't take anything. I didn't, Jeff. Don't you believe me? 

Jeff Bailey: Baby, I don't care.