Question about the end

Maybe my take on the ending is a bit too dark, but I thought Jeff felt he'd rather take his chances getting killed than go to Alcapulco with Kathie.

Even more than that, he felt the corner she'd placed him in was one he sort of deserved to be in. It goes back to his conversation with Jim, right after he last saw and talked to Ann. He made much with bravado of the point that Jim would not want to have Ann know that Jim would have turned Jeff into the cops. But he also had to consider whether Jim was right, whether he was really suitable for Ann. We see him doubting that from time to time before that, and when he gets back with Kathie, and maybe does feel some of her appeal that Ann talked about, which I think is suggested, then he has to wonder about not only Jim's points, but Ann's and whether he really had "gotten over" Kathie.

Not that he thought he could have made a go of it with Kathie, not at all, and not either that not "getting over" someone is reason to give up on life. but I do think there's a suggestion that at that moment, he thought his life was worth less than it was when he last saw Ann.

And of course the very ending, while still ambiguous, I think (and that is part of this film's greatness), would have less meaning if we didn't on some level see Ann going with Jim as a sort of happy ending.

When I first saw this film I recall hearing about how the Production Code at the time did not in effect allow for bad characters to get away with their crimes and misdeeds. Think if Bogart's character in High Sierra, having done much to redeem himself with Ida Lupino's, but not good enough, it seemed. The suggestion that regard was that it was something of a stretch to not only show Kathie getting it, but also Jeff - the point being that Jeff was not as morally compromised as Kathy by any reasonable standard, but compromised enough under the Code at the time (in other words, what happened to Jeff is what can be expceted to happen on a moral level to people who get mixed up with the likes of Kathie and Witt).

But in fact I don't think it was just the Code. I think the film pulls off being convincing that Jeff was in fact, in his own mind and soul, compromised to a great extent. After all when early in the film he said in answer to Kathie's question whether Jeff was concerned about getting involved with her, more or less, he said he really didn't care, and he meant it.

The whole notion of a femme fatale, Jane Greer's portrayal of Kathie being as strong and compelling as any I can think of in that regard, is really about the power a woman can have over a man. In this case to do some bad and otherwise self destructive things. Whether one thinks that is a too common pattern or merely a situation that affects this or that guy from time to time, it does happen. I think the lesson is it happened to Jeff.

Not to digress but my viewing last night reminded me of Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid, with Catherine Deneuve in the femme fatale role and Jean Paul Belmondo as the virtually helpless man. Fans of Out of the Past I think might want to give that more recent (1969, and in color if subtitled) film a chance.

probably.



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