Out of the Past

a film by Jacques Tourneur

The moment came to say goodbye to the James M. Cain cycle. Curiously, the closing feature, the 1947 Out of the Past, is based not on Cain’s novel but on Build My Gallows High by Daniel Mainwaring (writing as Geoffrey Homes), with the screenplay by the author with (uncredited) rewrites by Cain and Frank Fenton.

Cool as a cucumber Jeff “Baby, I don’t care” Markham (Robert Mitchum) meets his match in Kathie “You can’t make deals with a dead man” Moffat (Jane Greer). Add to that young Kirk Douglas as a ruthless but somehow charming “big operator” Whit Sterling and yet another femme fatale Ms Carson (Rhonda Fleming), and you have one of the finest film noirs of all time. Thank you, Filmoteca Canaria, for all the noir.

Jeff (voice-over): Near the plaza was a little cafe called La Mar Azul, next to a movie house. I sat there in the afternoons and drank beer. I used to sit there half asleep with a beer in the darkness, only that music from the movie next door kept jarring me awake. And then I saw her — coming out of the sun. And I knew why Whit didn’t care about that 40 grand.
Kathie: Cuba Libre, please.
Waiter: Sí, señorita.
José Rodríguez: Señorita, señor, may I speak some words? You will be seated, señor, huh? Yes?
Jeff: With pleasure, señor.
José Rodríguez: I am José Rodríguez, a guide, a most excellent guide.
Kathie: Indeed?
José Rodríguez: You ask them. They can tell you that José Rodríguez knows Acapulco as no one else. Each little street...
Kathie: I don’t want a guide.
Jeff: Very difficult girl.
José Rodríguez: Ha-ha-ha. Is there one not so, señor? Perhaps a lottery ticket?
Jeff: No.
José Rodríguez: I have here, wrought by skilled hands, a ring... and earrings of jade and pure silver.
Jeff: These.
José Rodríguez: Gracias, señor, gracias.
Kathie: I never wear them.
Jeff: Nor I. Please.
Kathie: No, thank you.
Jeff: My name is Jeff Markham, and I haven’t talked to anybody who wasn’t trying to sell me something for ten days. If I don’t talk, I think. It’s too late in life for me to start thinking. I could get down on the cliff and look at the sea like a good tourist. But it’s no good if there isn’t somebody you can turn to and say, “Nice view, huh?” It’s the same with the churches, the relics, the moonlight, or a Cuba Libre. Nothing in the world is any good unless you can share it.
Kathie: Maybe you wanna go home.
Jeff: Maybe that’s why I’m here.
Kathie: Is it? Well, there’s always José Rodríguez. If it gets too lonely, there’s a little cantina down the street called Pablo’s. It’s nice and quiet. Man there plays American music for a dollar. Sip bourbon and shut your eyes. It’s like a little place on 56^th Street.
Jeff: I’ll wear my earrings.
Kathie: I sometimes go there.