Fatal Attraction

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) will regret the day he
met the ravishing Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer)
in Out of the Past, the quintessential film noir.

Out of the Past (1947, RKO Radio)

Starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
Screenplay by Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring)

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

“But I didn’t take anything. I didn’t, Jeff.

Don’t you believe me?”— Kathie Moffat

“Baby, I don’t care.” — Jeff Bailey

Many film noir protagonists wind up taking the big sleep at the end of the movie. In Out of the Past, the male lead becomes a dead man walking the instant he glimpses the woman who will be his downfall.

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is a mystery man to the good folks in Bridgeport, even after several years of running a gas station there. However, a face from, er, out of the past appears at Jeff’s business to draft him into the service of Whit (Kirk Douglas), a mob boss who Jeff double-crossed several years earlier. Jeff reveals the details of the sordid affair to his girlfriend as they head toward his rendezvous with Whit.

In a flashback that features Jeff’s sardonic voice-over, we watch as Whit hires him to find Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), Whit’s lover, who shot him and ran off with $40,000, and to bring her back. Jeff tracks her to Mexico, where he watches the slinky Kathie stroll out of the sunlight into the darkness of a cantina. Jeff is totally captivated by this vision (as was I), and from that moment he knows he won’t be taking her back to Whit. What he doesn’t know is he also signed his own death warrant.

This meeting sparks an exhilarating ride that runs through a world dominated by greed, lust and a vain struggle to get out of the adventure alive. Greer brings to life the most fatal of femmes fatale, who doesn’t hesitate to switch sides or gun men down when she feels threatened. Mitchum fleshes out Jeff grandly as a smart guy who knows the angles, but that knowledge couldn’t keep him from being ensnared by this treacherous beauty.

With its dark shadows, where danger and deceit lurk, Out of the Past is a visually stunning film and is my pick as the best of master film noir cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca’s repertoire. As you’ll find in the best films noir, great dialogue, like the quotes above, snaps throughout. On imdb.com, fans have filled four pages commenting about the best lines.

Stay away from Against All Odds, the awful 1980s remake. You need to know only two things:

1) It was made in the '80s
2) Jeff Bridges plays the Mitchum role

Out of the Past is one of my favorite movies from any genre, and I find it exciting and entertaining to explore the dreamworld that is film noir.