This is one of the quintessential film noirs.<\/p>\n
(Spoiler Alert \u2013 Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)<\/strong><\/p>\n Robert Mitchum is Jeff Bailey, an auto repair shop owner living in a small town.\u00a0 He has a girl, Ann Miller who is in love with him and a deaf-mute boy who helps him with his shop.\u00a0 But he is hiding from his past.\u00a0 He was Jeff Markham, a private detective that was sent on an assignment by underworld boss Whit Sterling (played with good natured panache by Kirk Douglas) to find a girl who stole $40,000 from Whit and shot him for good measure.\u00a0 The girl, Kathie Moffat is hiding out in Mexico and while staking her out Jeff falls entirely in love with her and the two run away to live their lives far from Whit Sterling.<\/p>\n But Jeff\u2019s partner Jack Fisher, hunts them down and demands the $40,000 to keep from telling Sterling about their double cross.\u00a0 During a fistfight between Jeff and Fisher Kathie shoots Fisher dead. \u00a0While Jeff buries Fisher\u2019s body Kathie skips out on him.\u00a0 Jeff decides to take on the new identity as Jeff Bailey and settles in the small town of Bridgeport, California.<\/p>\n But now one of Whit Sterling\u2019s men arrives in Bridgeport and recognizes Jeff.\u00a0 He summons Jeff to Whit\u2019s summer house on Lake Tahoe.\u00a0 When Jeff gets there, he finds Kathie has reconciled with Whit and now it\u2019s Jeff\u2019s turn to square accounts with the underworld boss.\u00a0 There is a complicated scenario where Jeff is supposed to recover some tax documents that Whit\u2019s accountant is using to blackmail him.\u00a0 But it\u2019s really a set-up whereby Jeff will be the fall guy for the accountant\u2019s murder.\u00a0 And, of course, Kathie is part of the double cross too.\u00a0 There are a number of reversals but finally Jeff arranges a deal with Sterling such that Kathie will be on the hook for Fisher\u2019s murder and Jeff will be cleared of all the various crimes he\u2019s been framed for in return for the return of the tax documents.<\/p>\n But Kathie decides to upend the deal by murdering Sterling.\u00a0 Now she and Jeff are on the run for the various murders that have been committed and Jeff realizes that he\u2019ll never have that small town life he tried to escape to.\u00a0 He and Kathie die in a hail of bullets as he drives their car into a police ambush.<\/p>\n Interspersed between the action scenes we have the love story between Jeff and Ann.\u00a0 She\u2019s a gentle woman who believes that Jeff has a good side that exists beneath the tough persona that he projects to the world.\u00a0 And her belief in him propels him to try and escape from the criminal existence that Kathie has drawn him into.\u00a0 But fate eventually claims his life and leaves Ann to mourn him.<\/p>\n As with all good film noir, the plot is an awful mess.\u00a0 All of their terrible choices propel the protagonists to their bleak fates.\u00a0 But the movie is a pleasure to watch.\u00a0 Mitchum is at the top of his game with a tightly knit plot and lots of great lines to toss off.\u00a0 Kirk Douglas is an affable crime boss and adds a lot to the film.\u00a0 Kathie is a wonderfully dishonest femme fatale and is constantly double-crossing everyone in sight.\u00a0 And the rest of the supporting cast is fine too.\u00a0 I highly recommend this movie for film noir devotees and basically anyone who likes a good story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is one of the quintessential film noirs. (Spoiler Alert \u2013 Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation) Robert Mitchum is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[1910,1238,2451,43,38,1355,3189],"class_list":["post-18540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-film-noir","tag-hollywood-golden-era","tag-kirk-douglas","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-robert-mitchum"],"yoast_head":"\n