Out of the Past

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title, Out of the Past (1947), implies that something is arriving from the past, but it also suggests the desire to escape one’s history. The film begins with a stranger named Joe (Paul Valentine) asking about a man named Bailey at a gas station in Bridgeport, California, about 300 miles from Los Angeles. The attendant, who is called The Kid (Dickie Moore), is deaf and doesn’t speak, but indicates Bailey isn’t there. His not hearing suggests how he blocks out the world’s wrongdoings, but with the arrival of the suspicious Joe it turns out that attempt is impossible. The location looks like a sleepy small town near a lake and mountains, a good place for a person to hide out, or leave behind one’s past (which is very similar to what happens in the film A History of Violence). 

Joe goes into Marny’s Cafe and is followed by Jim (Richard Webb), a man whose car has information on it that shows he works for the state, implying he is a public servant. But this is a film noir piece so a decent person is not the focus of the story. But even here, there is that film noir snappy, tough stylized dialogue. Jim asks Marny ((Mary Field) if she changed her hair color. Marny says that she could be bald for as much as he noticed her before. He asks if she missed him. She says if she didn’t, she “can’t think of anybody else who did.” The conversation turns to Bailey spending time with Jim’s ex-girlfriend, Ann. So we know there is going to be friction between these characters in this love triangle. Joe asks about Bailey. He says he knew Bailey once and happened to see his name on a sign while passing by. But we get the feeling his arrival here is no accident.

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is with Ann (Virginia Huston), as they fish near a lake (fishing becomes a motif in the film, implying people are looking for ways to acquire information or catch others). Here, the couple is removed from civilization and its possible threats. She says she looks at the clouds and thinks about all the places she’s never been. She says that he has been to many locales, and he says, “too many.” These lines show how she wants to expand her experience, an innocent wanting to taste more of what life has to offer.  He feels like he has had enough of the world, having seen how life’s temptations can block any return to paradise. She asks where is his favorite place that he has visited, and he says, “This one right here.” Her response about how he tells that to all the “places” instead of using the word “girls” is a smart substitution, so she may be provincial but she is clever. His words indicate he likes his withdrawal from the outside world if he can be there with her. He shows how serious he is about her and his wanting to stay put when he says he wants to marry her and “never go anywhere else.” She asks if he was married before and he says, “not that I remember.” It’s a humorous response, but it isn’t a direct answer, either, which hints at a past that is used to dealing with deception. She says most people say he’s “mysterious.” Her mother, also unsure of Jeff, says Ann hasn’t known him long enough to be getting serious. The Kid arrives and signs information. It’s like a secret code that keeps most people in the dark about Jeff’s past. Jeff will only reveal at this point that there is a man who wants to see him.

Jeff goes to the gas station and meets Joe, apparently an old acquaintance. They both say they wish they were meeting under better circumstances, which sets the dangerous tone of the story. Joe still works for a guy named Whit, who Jeff also once did business with. Joe says Whit wants to see Jeff “worse” than Joe did. He doesn’t say “more,” and the “worse” makes the reunion with Whit appear ominous. By Joe saying Whit wasn’t upset that Jeff blew off the best opportunity that Whit could give him actually implies that Whit carries a grudge. But Joe tells Jeff that Whit just wants to talk with him. He tells Jeff to go to a house near Lake Tahoe. Joe tells Jeff about the house that he “won’t miss it,” but then adds, “you can’t,” which is a threat that means Jeff can’t afford not to be there.

Jeff goes to Ann’s place and asks if she wants to take a ride to Lake Tahoe. She had said he would have to tell her about what he was hiding, and he says because of Joe’s appearance he now must fill her in. (In film noir, the private investigator usually does the narrating, which puts the audience in the position of finding out the facts as the story unfolds). Jeff says his real last name is Markham. He worked in New York as a PI with Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie), who Jeff says is a “stupid, oily gent.” “Fisher” suggests what a detective should do, which is look for evidence, but Jeff’s description of his partner adds a tone of seediness associated with Jeff’s past. It was three years ago when they were called to see a prominent gambler who had been shot by a woman. Jeff’s story then becomes dramatized. 

Joe is complaining about the publicity the shooting is receiving, which is not what a criminal organization wants. Jeff and his partner, Jack, are there with Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas), a name that is ironic since his character is a tarnished one. Whit, who is bandaged after the shooting, says he likes Jeff because he is quiet while Whit talks. Jeff coolly says he never learned much by listening to himself speak. (After all, we usually already know what’s on our minds). The woman who shot Whit (women in the film noir genre associated with crooks or cops are usually femme fatales) ran off with $40,000. Whit wants her back, even without the money. He’ll pay Jeff ten grand and expenses to bring her to him. He says he picked Jeff because he is a smart guy, and an honest one, of which there aren’t too many around (a bit of an ironic statement considering what follows). Whit’s low opinion about the honesty of people points to the underbelly of society that film noir exposes. Whit isn’t going to the cops for help because he obviously doesn’t want them poking into his illegal operation. After Whit promises he won’t hurt the woman, whose name is Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), Jeff takes the case, asking for information on her. He wants to handle things on his own, but his partner, Jack, shows his mind is on the money because he wants half of the fees even if he doesn’t do any of the work.

Jeff finds out from a former employee of Kathie that her boss received vaccinations and left with suitcases to go south, probably Florida, because she hated snowy places. But Jeff concluded that Kathie went out of the country if she received shots, and discovered that the large amount of luggage went to Mexico City. (As in the later Touch of Evil, crossing the border can imply moving from the legal to the illegal, or from safety into danger). He tracked her and eventually went to Acapulco since if she was headed south, that was the place to catch a ship. He waited for her to show up at a restaurant near the departure area. When she appeared, he says, “I saw her coming out of the sun, and I knew why Whit didn’t care about that forty grand.” She is beautiful, and his line describes her as an immaculate entity, but the sunshine covers a darker side. 

Jeff gets up and drops his coins, showing her disorienting effect on him. Jeff buys some jewelry off of a tour guide/peddler, Jose Rodriguez (Tony Roux), and offers them to Kathie, who says she doesn’t wear earrings. Jeff wittily says that neither does he. Jeff makes his play by saying that nothing is that good unless you share it. She says maybe he ought to go home, implying he can find people back there he can share with (her advice in the long run is sound, considering his future adoptive home will be where Ann is). He responds that maybe that’s why he is in Acapulco, where Kathie is (who, as it turns out, is the wrong person to share anything with). She mentions a place called Pablo’s which is a cantina down the street that will play American music if you pay for it and will make him at least feel at home. He humorously says he’ll wear the earrings. As she leaves she says she goes there sometimes, which implies she may want to see him again.

Jeff doesn’t tell Whit that he found Kathie and goes to Pablo’s waiting for her to show up. He fits the film noir character who is seduced by the cunning female, but he is aware of it and can’t help himself, as he says, “I just thought what a sucker I was.” He goes to Pablo’s even though he knows she wouldn’t give in so easily by showing up the first night. That slim chance that she might appear the first time usurps his better judgment. When she shows up the second night, he says “she walked in out of the moonlight, smiling.” This line echoes the earlier one about coming in out of the sunlight. These lines conjure up an image of an almost supernatural creature who materializes due to celestial influences. It shows the male superimposing his idea of a dream girl onto the harsh reality of who she really is.

He sits down at her table and after a short time she says he is different because he doesn't ask questions, like where is she from? Again with a good comeback he says, “I’m thinking about where we’re going.” She asks if she wants her to take him somewhere else, and he romantically, but wittily says, “you’re gonna find it very easy to take me anywhere.” He’s practically admitting that she can wrap him around her finger. She says she is a better guide than Jose Rodriguez, and Jeff is very eager to go on a trip with her, no matter where it may lead. 

They go to a casino. The witty dialogue continues when she asks, after losing a lot of money, if there is a way of winning at the roulette table that she doesn’t know about, and he says, “There's a way to lose more slowly.” The exchange also points to how her being reckless can be damaging to a passenger going along for a ride with her, which is exactly what happens later. He isn’t willing to gamble “against a wheel,” but when she wants to know why he is “so hard to please,” he says, “Take me where I can tell you.” This sexually charged dialogue shows when it comes to her, he is willing to go all in. 

They walk along the beach and they kiss. She knows that Whit sent him and asks, “When are you taking me back?” He smartly asks if that is why she kissed him, suspecting she is just trying to manipulate him. She says no as she looks worried. He tells her that Whit didn’t die and wants her back. She says she hates Whit, and is “sorry he didn’t die.” His tired, resigned response is, “Give him time.” He sounds like the cynical character Clint Eastwood plays in Unforgiven when he says, “We’ve all got it coming.” She says she could have run away but she didn’t when Jeff showed up, as she tries to win him over. She vows she didn’t take Whit’s money and gets close to him and asks him to believe her. His response is, “Baby, I don’t care,” and they kiss again. He’s a hooked fish who doesn’t mind getting caught. 

After that he says he only met her at night, which goes along with the film noir motif of the darkness outside mirroring the place in the soul where demons reside. Jeff contacted Whit, but withheld information about Kathie, telling her he was in no hurry to bring her back. He didn’t know where she was staying, which added to her mysterious quality. (In a way, Jeff took Kathie’s place as a person of mystery who ran away when he gets involved with Ann). But one night she asks him to go to her place as it begins to storm, and as they kiss on her couch, the wind blows open the door, suggesting that she is sexually opening herself to him. The flowing, slick water from the rain adds a sexual symbolism to the scene. But the stormy weather also implies the precariousness that the onslaught of emotions will bring given her past violence and her connection to a dangerous man. He now suggests that they go away together before Whit comes looking for her. He asks her to meet him the next day at the hotel and they will leave. She says she fears Whit, and he is cavalier when he says they can send him a postcard around Christmas. She is encouraged that he is not afraid of Whit, but he says he is used to living with fear, which reveals what a scary life he has led. He says he is more afraid of her not going with him, but she says he doesn’t have to worry, as she tightens her hold on him.

As Jeff packs his clothes, Whit surprises him by showing up with Joe, adding to the danger of the situation. Jeff says he has not seen Kathie. Whit says he was on his way to Mexico City to see about a horse and tries to assure Jeff he wasn’t checking up on him. Suspense builds as there is a knock at the door, but instead of Kathie showing up, it’s only a hotel worker delivering Jeff’s polished shoes. A pretty girl is in the lobby, and Jeff stops short, which adds to the tension, but it isn’t Kathie. While seated at a table at the hotel bar, Jeff sees Kathie coming through the door, and distracts Whit by spilling a drink. He acts upset that Whit doesn’t believe that Kathie caught a boat south out of Acapulco, and Jeff missed her. He tells Whit he can check the information for himself and says Whit can have his money back if he thinks Jeff failed him. The play works and Whit tells him to cool down and let him know what else he finds. Whit and Joe leave for the airport.

Jeff continues to tell Ann his story noting that he and Kathie went to San Francisco and he opened an agency which was not paying well, but he was happy to be with Kathie. He says they were careful at first, but then became more assured and went to public places. There are scenes of the couple at ballparks and the racetrack. Jeff says it was a “one in a million shot” that their past would catch up to them. But sometimes a long shot wins. His old partner Jack Fisher sees Jeff at the racetrack, and Jeff knows the man would sell him out for some cash. He and Kathie separated, didn’t get in touch, and he headed to Los Angeles to throw Jack off the trail. 

Jeff and Kathie agreed to meet secretly at a cabin in the woods. It is dark out, which again fits the genre, and he talks about her appearing as if in a dream surrounded by light, only this time he sees her in the car’s headlights. Jeff even calls her hold on him a sort of “magic.” Alfred Hitchcock in Vertigo showed how dangerous it is to put your faith in a fantasy woman, and so it is here. 

Jeff says they thought they had been “smart,” but instead of Jack following him, he had followed Kathie, who didn’t have Jeff’s expertise to shake a tail, and Jack shows up at the cabin. Jeff knows Whit hired Jack after Jeff vanished, as Jack says he was the obvious choice to find him, being Jeff’s partner. There is no code of honor here, as the partner is ready to betray his colleague. Jack says they had a deal where they would split Whit’s payment, but Jeff notes he only pocketed five thousand dollars. Kathie is smart and says Jack isn’t going to report that he found them. Her devious personality knows how like-minded people act and says that Jack wants the forty thousand dollars that Kathie supposedly took from Whit. She still says she didn’t steal the money, and Jack insults Kathie, calling her a “cheap piece of baggage.” That line sparks a fistfight between Jeff and Jack. Jeff knocks Jack down and then Kathie uses a gun again, this time on Jack. Jeff is upset saying she didn’t have to kill the man. She says Jeff would have just thrown him out and then he would have told Whit who would come after them. Jeff may be tough, but she is lethal. As he looks at the dead Jack, Jeff hears a car door slam and Kathie leaves him there. In a bit of contrivance, Jeff happens to see she left behind her bank book which shows a deposit of forty thousand dollars. So she had lied to him even when she asked him to believe her. But he told her when they met that he didn’t care about the truth and called himself a “sucker” for getting involved with her. He must realize he should have known better.

Jeff finishes the story of his past. He says he buried Jeff Markham, reinventing himself as Bailey, and tells Ann he didn’t see Kathie again and doesn't want to. Ann says she doesn’t care about his past and he doesn’t have to confront it now. He says, “I’ve got to. I’m tired of running. I gotta clean this up some way.” He most likely feels that some people can never escape their past, but he thinks he can somehow make things right. She reassures him that she wants him to come back to her and they share parting smiles. But the lingering on this image makes it feel that this may be their last happy moment.

Smart banter ensues when Jeff meets Whit at the latter’s luxurious house in Tahoe (one can’t help but think of Michael Corleone’s home in The Godfather Part II). When Jeff admits to making a small profit selling gasoline at his station, he says it's called “earning a living. You may have heard of it somewhere,” which is the opposite of how Whit makes money illegally. The law-abiding and criminal worlds are contrasted here in his statement. Jeff says he “didn’t mean to hurt” Whit’s “feelings” by what he said. Whit’s coldness shows when he says, “My feelings? About ten years ago I hid them somewhere and I haven’t been able to find them.” He says he looked for those feelings in his “pocketbook,” and didn’t have to search further, which shows that money was all he really needed. 

Whit wants Jeff to steal some phony tax records from someone who helped Mitt defraud the government out of a million dollars. The man, Leonard Eels (a slimy name for sure) is blackmailing Mitt now. Jeff suggests Whit could pay the taxes, which Mitt says is against his “nature,” which is felonious. Jeff declines the job, but then Kathie enters, which means Mitt knows how Jeff double-crossed him, and feels Jeff now owes him. Jeff must feel like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, where just as he is trying to get out, they keep pulling him back in. Whit tells him to meet Meta Carson, Eels’s secretary who will help him get the records. He must return to San Francisco for the job. Whit, knowing that Jeff was in that city with Kathie, teases Jeff by asking if he’s been there. It is meant to dredge up bitter feelings about Kathie leaving him.

As Jeff writes a letter to Ann about where he is going, Kathie shows up in his room. She says she had to go back to Whit because she had no alternative since Whit would always be after her. He is sarcastic about her arguing helplessness, even when it comes to murder, when he says, “You’re like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another.” The use of the word “gutter” shows his contempt for her. She admits to telling Whit about them but not about killing Jack, who Jeff had to bury, covering up a crime in one of those film noir dark places. She tells Jeff she has to believe her, like she did about stealing the money, which of course, is a ridiculous request at this point. She says that she missed him, and “prayed'' that he’d “understand.” He says, “You prayed, Kathie?” showing how hard it is to believe that act, and possibly implying that an unscrupulous person like her saying she was being religious is a sacrilege. He has had it with being deceived by her, and tells her to leave because he has “to sleep in this room.” It’s as if her presence has contaminated the space. 

In San Francisco he meets up with the attractive Meta Carson (Rhonda Fleming) at her apartment. Witty words are again exchanged as Jeff uses his charm to gain an edge. She asks if he was acquainted with the city, and he says he was intimate with the town since “they lived '' together, which sets a sexual tone for the conversation. After he compliments the feel of her place she says an old apartment can be “amusing.” He says he lived in an old place in New York, but “it wasn’t very amusing.” He likes to expose the veneer of phoniness that some people project. They get down to the specifics about acquiring the papers from her boss. She also uses sex appeal as a tool when he grabs her shoulder and says he wants to come out of this job unharmed. She says she wonders if he always leaves his “fingerprints” on a girl’s shoulder (fingerprints suggest something unlawful being done and will factor into the plot shortly), but says, “Not that I mind particularly. You’ve got nice strong hands.”

Jeff rides with a cab driver he knows who wonders why he looks worried. Jeff says he thinks he’s being framed. He arrives at Eels’s place where he is supposed to pick up Meta. She acts like Jeff’s her cousin, and they have to leave. Jeff resists going along with the plan. And when Meta leaves the balcony, he says to Eels that his real cousin is “named Norman and he’s a bookmaker in Cleveland, Ohio.” Jeff says he is from Tahoe, and says they worry about “income tax there,” which communicates he is connected to Whit. Jeff wonders if he was sent there to leave his fingerprints which would make Jeff a “patsy,” and Eels (Ken Niles) might be in danger. He says he will be back. When he joins Meta she says he acted like an “idiot,” not following the plan. Jeff says Eels is an “idiot” because he is in love with her. We have another femme fatale here it seems.

They leave in the same cab Jeff arrived in. When he asks if Meta feels bad double-crossing Eels, she says maybe he crosses people, too. In the film noir part of the world, nobody is innocent. When they drop her off, the cabbie comments that Meta looks nice. But Jeff points out Meta's sinister side by saying she is “awfully cold around the heart.” Jeff goes into the building where they left Meta. He sees Eels's name on the directory. He tells the cab driver to follow Meta and meet him at Eels’s place. He sneaks into Eels’s apartment and finds the man’s dead body. He puts it in a closet in an apartment that is being renovated. He meets up with the cab driver, but he says he lost Meta after a cop stopped him for running a traffic light.

Jeff goes to Telegraph Hill and finds Kathie there. He sneaks into a bedroom while she is having a party. He can’t find anything but then the phone rings. He hides, but she doesn’t reach it in time (no caller ID back then). She calls Eels’s apartment house to ask the manager to check on Eels since he doesn’t answer his phone. She obviously knows the plan was to kill him. When the manager calls back and says Eels isn’t there, Kathie is flustered. She leaves a message for Joe. Jeff surprises her, and says Whit wanted “Eels out of the picture and to square an account with me.” That way Whit is free of the blackmailer and would get his revenge by framing Jeff for Eels’s murder. In film noir, there is a lot of double-crossing. Jeff acts as if he was able to warn Eels in time. Kathie says she is glad he got away because she knew that would mean that Jeff would be blamed. Jeff wonders how easy it is for her to change sides so often. There is no moral anchor in her character. Meta already took the tax papers and they were in her briefcase. But what was Jeff’s motive for killing Eels? Jeff figures that they had to have planted something. Kathie admits that they made her sign an affidavit which was in Eels’s safe that said Jeff killed Jack. She says she hates Whit and they can get the tax papers in the manager’s office at Whit’s club. Then they would have leverage and could go back to Acapulco to start over. She kisses him and he seems to go along with the plan. 

Joe shows up at Kathie’s place after Jeff leaves. He looks shaken because he killed Eels. Kathie now realizes that Jeff lied to her to fool her into thinking that the plot against Eels and him had failed. Jeff goes to the Sterling Club and enters Manager Baylord’s office. He knocks out Baylord (John Kellogg) and finds the briefcase hidden under a desk drawer. Jeff takes a cab, but the doorman knows the driver and Baylord tells his men to track down the fare. 

Jeff tells the hotel desk clerk to have a driver meet him at the airport with a ticket for the package he hands the man. He still carries the briefcase that is supposed to contain the tax documents. But, in film noir, appearances are deceiving. Joe and one of Baylord’s men grab Jeff and push him into Jeff’s waiting cab and drive back to Baylord’s office. It turns out Jeff substituted the San Francisco Telephone Directory for the tax records in the briefcase. Jeff doesn’t expose Kathie about telling him where the tax records were. He says instead he found out by having Meta followed. Jeff says he will give them the tax records for the affidavit that would frame him for Jack’s murder, which he notes he didn’t commit. He wittily says he didn’t kill the guy, only buried him, and “you don't get the gas for being the undertaker.” Baylord obviously knows that somebody leaked the information about the affidavit, and this time Jeff doesn’t get Kathie off the hook. Jeff says that Meta can unlock Eels’s safe and get the document.

Jeff hides outside Eels’s building as police arrive with the apartment manager. This is a complication that prevents acquiring the affidavit. This incident shows how plans can’t be relied upon when people get tangled in their web of deceit. The story shifts back to the bucolic safety of Bridgeport as Ann comes down the stairs in her house as her father picks up the newspaper that was just delivered. But the upsetting news disrupts the family’s peacefulness. The article says Jeff Bailey is sought for two murders, including that of Eels. Ann’s mother says she knew Jeff was no good, and Ann runs off upset. 

The newspaper notes that Jeff escaped and they can't find The Kid who worked for him at the gas station. There is the belief he may be headed to Bridgeport. Jim, Ann’s ex-boyfriend, now knows about Jeff and goes to a spot near the stream where Ann likes to visit. He finds Ann who maintains her faith in Jeff and says she doesn’t believe Jeff killed anybody. The scene shifts to Tahoe where The Kid meets with Joe and Kathie. She tells The Kid Whit is fishing and to let Jeff know they’re sending for him. These are more lies. As The Kid leaves, Joe wonders if what they are about to do is a good idea, which indicates what is about to happen is Kathie’s plan, and we know how plans turn out in this tale.

Joe follows The Kid into the woods where he is fishing (that word again). Joe is up high where he sees Jeff standing next to a tent where he was camping out. The Kid sees Joe pull out a gun and The Kid hooks him using his pole and pulls him off the cliff. Joe falls to his death after having been literally caught in his murderous attempt. Jeff surprises Kathie at night (in the shadows, of course) in her bedroom while she sleeps. He tells her about Joe’s death, and she still lies, saying she didn’t send Joe. She tells him Whit is downstairs and wants to see him. 

Jeff says he’ll give Whit the tax papers if he gets rid of the frame against him and gives him $50,000. He says Whit can blame Eels’s murder on Joe now that he’s dead. He can plant a note on Joe’s body that says he committed suicide out of guilt, so he and The Kid aren’t involved. He then says to give up Kathie for Jack’s death, and she can get off based on self-defense. She apparently did not tell Whit about her killing him. He also says to Whit that she sent Joe to his death by trying to find Jeff. Jeff is just trying to set the record straight, to do away with the deceptions about the deaths of Eels and Jack, but he is still willing to let Whit get away with tax fraud to do it and to avoid responsibility for Joe’s death. Whit looks like he’s having doubts about Kathie’s denials of responsibility for the deaths of Jack and Joe.

Jeff leaves the room and Whit shows that his eyes have been opened. He smacks Kathie and says she has been lying all along about the deaths and how she has tried to manipulate him. He says she’s taking responsibility for Jack’s death and he will contact the police. Otherwise, he will make her suffer thinking about when he will kill her and then have her endure an excruciating death. Whit agrees to Jeff’s terms and says he will get the money for him. Jeff sarcastically tells Kathie not to worry, she’ll find a way, as she always has, of escaping punishment.

In the woods back in Bridgeport Jeff meets Ann. Jim has been spying on Ann, expecting Jeff to show up, and he lurks close by. She wants to make sure that Jeff has not even a little love left for Kathie. He assures her there isn’t any. Ann says Kathie can’t be all bad, but Jeff says, “she comes the closest,” stressing Kathie’s lack of any moral center. Jeff worries about dragging her into his dirty world. Ann is the opposite of the femme fatales who inhabit the underworld he has been dragged back into. Jim confronts Jeff at the car and says he meant to kill him, but he tries to argue that Jeff already knows the damage to Ann that can occur if she is in Jeff’s life. Jeff still holds onto the fact that Ann loves him and is not willing to give that up yet.

Jeff goes back to Tahoe to finalize the deal, but finds Whit dead. Kathie has killed again making Jeff’s prediction come true about trying to escape her fate. She tells Jeff, “I never told you I was anything but what I am. You just wanted to imagine I was.” What she says comes close to what happens in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, where Jimmy Stewart’s character believes what he wants to believe when worshiping a woman, and gives into deluding himself about her true deceptive nature, as Jeff did here. Kathie tells him he has nobody to clear him now, since Whit and Joe are gone and he has the deaths of Jack and Eels incriminating him. He only has her to deal with. His response to her is, “Well, build my gallows high, baby,” which combines a capitulation to fate with defiance. 

But Kathie wants a replay of the time they had in Mexico. She wants them to recapture that passion. She says that they were meant for each other, because, she says, “You’re no good and neither am I. That’s why we deserve each other,” and he shouldn’t waste his time thinking about anyone else (which means Ann). Her argument is that sinners were meant to be with their own kind. He says they will be hunted, but she says she doesn’t care as long as they are together. In her strange way she loves him, as long as she comes first, as she reminds him that she is “running the show.” 

She goes upstairs to get some luggage and Whit’s promised cash. She also packs a gun, showing that she may have a deadly plan for Jeff if he doesn’t play along. While she is upstairs he makes a phone call. Before they leave she says they “deserve a break,” and he echoes what she said before that, “They deserve each other.” But underneath that expression that seems to say that they were meant for each other is the feeling that mirrors Kathie’s implication that corruption is incestuous. As they drive away the police show up to block the road, and Kathie, indeed being the “fatal woman,” shoots Jeff in a struggle, realizing he called the cops. She shoots at the policemen who return fire. The car crashes and Kathie is killed. Jeff’s dead body falls out of the car. It seems that the only way to rid oneself of a dark past and make things right is to quit playing the corrupt game through self-sacrifice.

Back in Bridgeport Ann walks with Joe who says he wants to be with her. She breaks away and tells The Kid that she needs to know if Jeff was going away with Kathie. He nods “yes.” He lies, too, but knowing he did what Jeff would have wanted, to free Ann from any feelings that connected Ann to him. She gets into Jim’s car, and leaves Jeff’s ugly world behind.

The next film is The Hurt Locker.

The Apartment

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Here is a different Valentine’s Day story. The Apartment won Best Picture and its director and co-writer Billy Wilder received Oscars for the screenplay and directing. The story was inspired by the movie Brief Encounter, where characters meet at an apartment for their love affair. Wilder wondered about the person who lent the man and woman his place, and that is how Wilder’s film was born. One has to hold back one’s outrage, although not one’s judgment, in the current #MeToo world at the way some women are depicted in this film. But the movie does expose the demeaning way men treat women and the limited roles offered to females. It also addresses the situation of the average worker compared to the privileged lives of corporate executives. 

The first shot echoes the title since it is of the apartment exterior of C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon, at his jittery sad/comic best).  His nickname is Bud and he narrates over an aerial shot of New York City while providing statistics about the number of people living there. He knows the statistics because he works for a large insurance company, Consolidated Life. The name itself sounds restrictive. Insurance is sold as a tool to provide economic protection, which implies concern for people. But we discover that the corporate bosses do not exhibit that positive attribute toward others. There are over 31,000 employees at the home office. They are arranged in multiple long rows on numerous floors. Bud says he is in the Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861, which presents him as just one of the seemingly endless cogs in the vast machine. Bud continually provides numerical information, like Harold in Stranger than Fiction, another character who is more comfortable with figures than people. Bud has a huge calculator on his desk, showing the importance of numbers over people. The building operates like clockwork, staggering the time periods of each floor to accommodate the elevators carrying multiple floors of worker bees in its vast hive. 

Bud stays alone for two hours at work on his empty floor after his shift as “a way of killing time,” because he has a “little problem with his apartment.” One of the important questions that this film poses is how do we view Bud, either as a basically decent person who succumbed to pragmatism, or a conspirator in wrongful behavior? We already see that he is a loner, and his lending out of his place has already been going on for some time. He says it’s a “cozy” apartment for a bachelor, which also fortifies the isolated aspect of Bud’s life. The dingy appearance of his rental shows the film’s focus on the ordinary lives of people and contrasts with the bright expansive company building, the best that money can buy. The executive, Al Kirkeby (David Lewis), from Bud’s office, has used Bud’s place for a romantic encounter with a woman (the story here was groundbreaking in its presentation of adultery). The man tries to get the woman he is with to leave because the “schnook” who rents it will be coming home. Obviously Bud is not held in high regard despite the favor he is doing. Bud hides in the dark so as not to cause any embarrassment for Kirkeby and probably himself, stressing how he doesn’t want his association in the activity to be exposed. Kirkeby leaves with the girl (who by the way sounds like an airhead, which does not provide a positive representation of a woman in this 1960 film Although, as the story progresses, there is a feeling that women are not given the opportunity to fulfill their potential). When she wants him to get her a cab, he complains that all the “dames” live in the Bronx. She questions whether he has brought other women to the apartment. His funny comment, which he does not realize contrasts with his adulterous actions, is, “Certainly not. I’m a happily married man.” 

Bud lives alone, but ironically his place is often occupied by others, dispossessing him of his solitary solace. He is thus doubly punished, being a loner while suffering to endure the intimate encounters of others in the place where he should be enjoying companionship. Bud has to tell a neighbor he stood outside in the rain because he was waiting for a friend. This is just the first of the numerous lies that populate this story. He then has to pretend that he dropped his key when he encounters another neighbor while he is actually retrieving it from under the carpet where Kirkeby left it. His life is built on falsehoods to others and himself. In his apartment, he must clean up the mess that the couple left behind, another indication of his subordinate role, a janitor for the indiscretions of others. Kirkeby comes back to get the woman’s galoshes, and Bud politely complains how he had to wait in the rain and hadn't had dinner because the man was late in leaving (Bud heats frozen TV dinners for one, and when he takes a drink he says, “Cheers,” but he is alone so it is a toast to himself). Kirkeby reassures Bud he “put in a good word” for Bud with Sheldrake in Personnel about how they are looking for young executives. He reassures Bud that he is on his way up the ladder, but then treats him like a waiter, ordering food and drink for his next visit even though he hasn’t reimbursed Bud for the booze from before. It seems that just being a good worker isn’t enough to get ahead, so Bud has to resort to unsavory methods.

Bud must continue to hide the covert activities that occur in his place as he encounters Doctor Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen), another neighbor, who sees him carrying out numerous empty bottles of liquor following the night’s liaison. Dreyfuss notes that he can hear the goings-on on various nights, and says that unless Bud slows down, he may have a short life. In a humorous comment, he even says Bud should donate his body to science, implying that it would be interesting to study the impact of the extreme decadent lifestyle of such a person. It’s all an illusion as Bud is viewed as a wild playboy, the opposite of what he is, which hints at the phony facade that life can become. While he eats his defrosted dinner, Bud puts on his TV, and Grand Hotel is about to play, the title of the movie contrasting with Bud’s meager dwelling, but which also hosts numerous guests. Several commercials interrupt the start of the movie, so Bud can’t even enjoy a film as the importance of business denies him pleasure in his work and leisurely life. He rejects action shows on other channels, which accentuates Bud’s dull life. Another boss, Dobisch (Ray Walston), wakes up Bud to say he has a woman to use the place. She also appears as a ditsy blonde drunk, who Dobisch likens to Marilyn Monroe (who Wilder did not enjoy working with in previous films). Dobisch threatens Bud with a poor evaluation unless he can have the apartment so Bud is tossed out into the night. Dobisch tells his female escort that it’s his mother’s apartment, another lie. (Hotel detectives at the time would keep a hotel’s good reputation intact by evicting those that booked rooms for those brief encounters, so that is why a private apartment was a desirable place for an affair).

Bud meets Kirkeby on the way to the elevator at work the next day and the man innocently asks if they are keeping Bud “busy.” Bud says, “yes indeed,” but his response is not about how the bosses are wearing him out at the office, but instead refers to his after-hours life. Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) is the elevator operator. The only way she can “rise” at work is in the elevator. As Kirkeby exits the elevator he smacks Fran on the behind with his newspaper, an act that would be grounds for a sexual harassment violation today. Despite her lowly work position, she does not take his action lightly, and smartly says that one day she will close the elevator door on him, leaving him handless. Kirkeby complains to Bud that no man can get Fran to sexually play along, and asks what’s the matter with her. Bud respectfully says she is the best operator there and maybe she is just a decent woman. This respect for a woman’s refusal to submit to sexual pressure is met with a dismissal by Kirkeby, with him saying Bud is acting like an innocent child. Decency is considered a liability in this manipulative world.

Bud calls Dobisch because the man left the wrong key under the mat, so little does the boss care about how his actions affect a subordinate. It turns out the key he left was for the executive washroom, emphasizing the two tiers of the economic hierarchy. Dobisch says he will be sending paperwork about Bud getting a promotion to the personnel department. Bud has a cold (mirroring his decline in his immunity to immorality?) and is sleepy from the prior evening's deprivations. Bud wants to use his place for the night to recuperate. But to be able to remain in his own place he spends a great deal of time rescheduling all of the men who have reserved his place for their adulterous activity. The scene is a mockery of what is supposed to be happening, which is conducting legitimate business instead of monkey business. 

Bud gets a call from Sheldrake in Personnel and Bud’s co-worker at the next desk wonders if Bud is getting promoted even though he has been there longer than Bud. This fact points to the inequity of a system that rewards illicit favors instead of loyalty to the company. On the way up, literally and figuratively, in the elevator Fran compliments him for being a gentleman who always took his hat off in the elevator. He earlier complimented her on her shorter hairstyle which she felt it didn’t work. He asks if they could talk sometimes so she could tell him her elevator stories. Although he considers her a decent person, she says, “Just because I wear a uniform doesn’t make me a girl scout.” Her comment adds to the number of false fronts that people present which cover up their morally compromised lives. She changes the discussion, probably wary of always trying to be propositioned. She does offer Bud a flower for his lapel, showing some kindness toward him.

Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) rhetorically asks why Bud is so “popular” with the bosses of the company’s departments. He says that he knows what goes on everywhere (he is the Director of Personnel, but despite his title, he exploits and controls the workers, another example of a false exterior). Sheldrake says that there was an employee recently who was also “popular” because he was running a gambling operation, and Sheldrake had the police vice squad shut it down. On the surface he appears to want to operate a legitimate organization. But, he knows about Bud’s apartment use and Bud doesn’t deny it. He explains that one man said he needed a place to change his clothes and Bud wasn’t aware of the man’s true intentions. Bud says the word circulated around, and others asked to use his place and he couldn’t grant one boss while denying another, which implies that it would have meant a loss of job security. Bud says there are only four men involved and swears he’ll shut down the situation, thinking that Sheldrake wants him to clean up his act. But, Sheldrake asks many questions that hint that he is interested in getting in on the action. Sheldrake receives a phone call from his wife, so we know he is also married. He says he can’t come home early because he is going to a show (a lie). He then gives the tickets to Bud as a trade to use his apartment for the evening. Earlier Sheldrake said they can’t have “four bad apples” in the company when he was trying to intimidate Bud. As Bud hands him the key to his place, he says compliantly, but tellingly, that it doesn't matter whether there are four or five apples, implying a link to the word “bad,” which now includes Sheldrake.

Bud waits for Fran at the end of the day to ask her to go to the show since Sheldrake gave him two tickets. She says that she is meeting a man who she once thought was serious about her, but feels that the relationship is over. She says she can meet him later at the theater. Bud knows everything about her, including her height, weight, Social Security number, and even that she has a small scar from an appendectomy. He looked up her information in the company records. In this context she finds it a bit flattering that he cared about her enough to find out about her. Nowadays we would consider this a creepy stalking and invasion of privacy that could lead to identity theft. How times have changed. 

For the first time we have a scene that does not include Bud. It turns out that the man Fran has been carrying on with is Sheldrake. He says he liked her hair long, which contrasts with Bud complimenting her short hairstyle, and showing his approval of her exercising her own will. They haven’t seen each other for six weeks, and he says he missed her, but doesn’t want anyone to hear her say his name (more covering up). She says they are in the same place and are hearing the same song, and she is hearing him say the same things again, which translates to her suggesting nothing has moved forward between them. She mentions there's the same “sweet and sour sauce” on the table, which may mean she is implying the tastes sum up their relationship. He tries to seduce her back (after all, he already has secured Bud’s apartment). She sadly recounts what happens historically to the “other woman” who pretends that while she is with the man, he is single, but then he looks at his watch and has to hurry back to his home, and then she eventually sees through the self-delusion and finds what she is doing is “ugly.” Fran is not portrayed as the mentally lightweight women carrying on with the other men. However, the film generally shows that women at this time don’t have many career opportunities open to them. Sheldrake tells her that he saw his lawyer about ending his marriage. She says that she never asked him to leave his wife, and he says that it wasn’t because of her. This line has the effect of not making her feel guilty. When asked, she says that she does love him, and he says the same about her. When they leave, Sheldrake’s secretary, Miss Olsen (Edie Adams), sees the two together, which we know will lead to trouble for them later. As they drive to the apartment, poor Bud, sniffling and out in the cold, as usual, in front of the theater, gives up hope waiting for Fran, and heads off dejected and still alone. 

Bud now moves up to the front of the seemingly endless rows of sardine-packed workers into his own office. The four men to whom he is lending time at his home arrive and say that they don’t like being denied access to his place lately. Obviously, Bud is giving priority to Sheldrake who has the power over job placements. Sheldrake wants a key for himself so that his secretary won’t see the two men passing it back and forth. Bud found a makeup compact in his apartment and gives it to Sheldrake to return to his girlfriend. He notes that the mirror is cracked, and Sheldrake opens it. We see his reflection in the glass, and the crack symbolizes Sheldrake’s broken morality. Sheldrake admits that the woman threw it at him. He says it’s so unreasonable that when you go out with a woman briefly that she wants a guy to leave his wife. (So we realize Sheldrake told another of the many lies in this story when he said to Fran that he saw his attorney about a divorce). He asks Bud, “Now I ask you, is that fair?” Sheldrake’s idea of fairness doesn’t even consider how unfair he is being to his wife and Fran. Bud dutifully replies, “No, sir. It’s very unfair. Especially to your wife.” His response can be taken two ways, that it would be unfair for Sheldrake to leave his wife, or its terrible the way the man is violating the loyalty to his marriage. But, it’s difficult to have unqualified sympathy for Bud at this point, despite his lack of sleep, upper respiratory illness, inconvenience, and the pressure placed upon him, because of his complicity in the unethical behavior. 

Six weeks go by and there is a carefree Christmas party on Bud’s floor. The short, festive season is a happy exterior painted over the extended sadness in the lives of the unhappy workers. Bud brings a drink to Fran as the elevator door opens. He admits that he was hurt by her not showing up at the theater, but says she did the “decent” thing since it would not be ethical to have a drink with one man and then go see another. It is ironic that morality is at issue, since he is lending out his place for secret affairs, and she is the one using it as she meets a married man there. Fran encounters Olsen, Sheldrake’s secretary. She is inebriated and lets Fran know that she had a fling with Sheldrake and he took her to the same restaurant where she saw Fran and Sheldrake. She says Sheldrake has had numerous affairs and would tell all the women about how he was getting a divorce. She notes Sheldrake is quite a salesman, the remark commenting on the deceitful nature of these businessmen who make empty promises (A musical was later made based on this film called Promises, Promises).

In his office, Bud says to Fran he is the youngest executive there, outside of the “grandson of the Chairman of the Board,” which shows beside providing a place for illicit sex, nepotism will bring you success in a company. Fran is devastated now after what Olsen said, and says she has to get back to her job, feeling that is all she has left. Bud says he has influence with Sheldrake and she doesn’t have to worry. Sheldrake sent Bud a Christmas card that shows a family picture which adds to the death of any holiday joy for Fran when she looks at it. Bud bought a hat and asks Fran how it looks on him. She hands him her compact to view himself and when he sees the broken mirror (which also reflects how his character is damaged, too) he realizes that it is Fran who has been seeing Sheldrake at his place. When he notes that the mirror is broken, she says, “I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.” She already has insight into her flawed character. At that moment Sheldrake calls and there is now a hard edge to Bud’s voice because he sees that he has contributed to the damage of a woman he cares about. Bud now has lost the cheerful spirit of the party and begins to walk out as a woman on a desk pretends to do a striptease, which again shows how men expect a woman's job is to sexually excite them. 

Bud goes to a bar and is miserable about learning that the woman he feels for is another of the females connected to his cheating bosses. He washes his sorrow in alcohol. An inebriated woman, Margie (Hope Holiday), another female who sounds ditzy as she talks about her husband jailed in Cuba for doping horses, asks him to buy her a drink. The music in the background is a religious holiday song, which contrasts with the sins of these two outsider characters who have no real family to be with. At Bud’s apartment the “comfort and joy” of the Christmas tree also stands in opposition to Sheldrake’s trying to sell his “good” intentions to Fran after she has shown him she knows about his many affairs. She sarcastically says that there is a lucky girl at the office who will follow her as Sheldrake’s next conquest. He spins the situation, saying a man chases other women because he isn’t happy at home. He promises that she is the one for him and has stopped “running.” But hedges his commitment by arguing he can’t bring up divorce during the holidays when the whole family is present. She bought him a record album which has music associated with the restaurant they frequent, but he can’t take it home because it would raise questions. He undermines his voiced affection for Fran by saying he didn’t know what to buy her, which demonstrates what little effort he puts into caring about her feelings. Instead he gives her a hundred dollars, and the look on Fran’s face is a bitter one since she sees he is treating her like a prostitute. He says he has to get home to “trim the tree” which just adds to how he will never leave his family, and stresses how he has a home of his own to go to. When she warns him not to kiss her lips because it will leave lipstick marks, she is being sarcastic, which he does not realize and sees it as being practical. His wishing her a “Merry Christmas” is like sticking a knife in her heart and twisting it. After he leaves she plays a song on the record player that is entitled “Jealous Lover,” which fits how she is envious of a life with a man she can’t have. As was noted in other posts on this blog, mirrors are used in films to betray other, usually darker sides of ourselves. Mirrors again are symbolic here, as Fran looks at her desperate self in one, and views a bottle of Seconal sleeping pills reflected in another. 

Meanwhile Bud and Margie are drunk and dance at the bar until closing time. She asks to whose place they should go, and he humorously says his since that’s where everybody else goes. In this case she’s the married one, whereas the men are the cheaters in the other instances, which casts Bud in the role previously assigned to the females. Bud, as an inside joke inspired by the reputation assigned to him by his neighbors, says he is a notorious lover. He probably thinks in his drunken state that he has been living a lie for so long he might as well reap the benefits of his infamy. 

At his place he finds Fran passed out on his bed. He is gruff with her because she hurt him, but does not yet realize she has attempted suicide with his pills. When he sees the empty bottle, he gets rid of Margie and calls Dr. Dreyfuss. The doctor gets her to vomit and pumps her stomach, then administers medicine. He uses smelling salts, smacks her about the face to arouse her (which is a bit disturbing despite the good intentions) and Bud brews coffee. Bud still lies as he says he had a lover’s quarrel with Fran and says her overdose was just an accident, as he most likely is attempting to lessen the chance that Dreyfuss will report the incident. He is protecting the bosses so they won’t be exposed. Fran wonders why Bud is there, not knowing it is his apartment. They keep her walking to counter the immediate effects of the pills and then she must sleep off the residual effects. It is not easy to pull off a story that has many comic elements in it and then introduces the element of suicide. Wilder and his co-writer, I. A. L. Diamond, subvert the romantic comedy genre here and make it work.

The landlady confronts Bud about the uproar of the previous night. She wonders if he disturbed the doctor, and he continues to cover up the truth, saying the doctor was not at home. Sheldrake is at his house on Christmas while not even thinking about the damage he has caused. Bud calls him. Even though he is still hiding Sheldrake’s guilt for his selfish reasons, Bud still has concern for Fran. He is worried that the doctor warned that many try to take their lives again if they fail. Sheldrake however takes no responsibility and declines wanting to see Fran or find out about the contents of the envelope which she left for him (which turns out only to contain the $100 bill he used to try and buy her continued submission). He wants Bud to handle the problem which happens to be a human being. Fran wakes up and apologizes. Out of worry, Bud removes his shaving razor blades. Fran wants to call her family so they won’t worry about her not being there for Christmas, but he is concerned about divulging her situation. He tries to calm her by lying, saying that Sheldrake was concerned about her, which Fran recognizes as untrue. She is miserable because, she says, she still loves him, even though he has treated her badly. It is difficult to move on when one’s feelings have been heavily invested and the past and the future offer no hope of anyone better to get close to.

Mrs. Dreyfuss shows up like a Jewish mother hen with chicken noodle soup telling Fran to find a good man to be with. Bud’s lack of confidence comes through when he says to Fran he’s actually flattered that the woman thinks he could possibly drive such a lovely woman as Fran to such desperate ends. She can’t eat, so Bud wants to play cards. He likes the company, revealing his lonely life because last Christmas he had an early dinner alone, went to the zoo, and helped clean up after another person’s party at Bud’s apartment. Everybody has fun at his apartment except Bud. He wants to play gin and the counting of the scores show him retreating to his safe place among the definiteness of numbers. She says that she was cursed from the beginning when it came to love. Her first kiss was in a cemetery and the guy dumped her for someone else. It was sort of like her initiation into romance was dead on arrival. She says she always gets involved with the wrong guy at the wrong place and time. She tried secretarial school, but was not able to spell. (Is it really her fault, or is it that because she has not been given the tools to rise up the ladder of success that she is relegated, because of her good looks, to being an object for sexual exploitation?) She asks if Sheldrake was upset about her and Bud lies yet again saying he was, but here Bud is trying to protect Fran’s feelings. Fran wants to believe it, saying she will write a letter to Sheldrake’s wife to explain the situation. Bud tells her it would not be a good idea because she would later hate herself for causing pain. Her disgust with her actions is obvious when she says she hates herself already. 

Kirkeby shows up with his girlfriend since it’s his designated day. Bud starts to throw him out when Kirkeby sees a woman’s dress hanging up. The boss believes Bud is just another guy on the sexual prowl. His date is outside the apartment as Dreyfuss comes home, and the doctor thinks Bud is still up to his old tricks. Everything turns out to be a deception. When Fran says nobody would care what happens to her, Bud says he would, and in her somewhat sedated state wonders why she can’t seem to “fall in love with someone nice” like him. Her statement reveals how these two yearn for a connection to someone who is intrinsically decent in a world of duplicity.

After having found out that his secretary divulged his affairs to Fran, Sheldrake fires Olsen. Without any legal or social media support against such an unjust action, a woman at that time was vulnerable to the power of the employer. Olsen does point out that he actually let her go emotionally four years prior and subjected her to seeing several “new models” pass through. Her remarks stresses that Sheldrake views women as objects to use and then discard. Being unselfish and worrying about Fran’s mental health, Bud calls Sheldrake and asks him to be nice and comfort her. Instead Sheldrake tells Fran he should be mad at her for scaring him, as he makes it about himself. He says they should pretend it didn’t happen. She counters with why not forget they ever met and that she fell in love with him as well as forgetting about her suicide attempt. Her response shows how self-serving and pitiless Sheldrake is. On her way out, Olsen eavesdrops on the phone call between Fran and Sheldrake. After seeing how his abuse of his power must be stopped, and because she no longer has anything to lose, she sets up an appointment with Sheldrake’ wife. She appropriately tells the elevator attendant that she is “going down,” suggesting she is basically taking the fall for trying to help a member of the sisterhood.

There is the smell of gas coming from Bud’s apartment as he comes back from shopping. He jumps to the conclusion, understandably, that Fran may be trying to kill herself again. She actually just didn’t know she had to light the stove to boil some water. But the scene shows Bud’s worrying about her. She also started to wash his socks, which illustrates how they could be domestic partners, because she is a housekeeper and he is a cook, when he has someone to make a meal for. She found several items that belonged to women, and he says he just couldn’t say no. She realizes he means he couldn’t refuse people like Sheldrake. She says Sheldrake is a “taker” and, “some people get took. And they know they’re getting took and there’s nothing they can do about it.” She is talking about both of them. But Bud shows some hope when he says, “I wouldn’t say that,” which means they can fight being taken advantage of. She wants to go home, but he says the doctor said that she needs forty-eight hours to get rid of the medicine in her system. She wonders how long it takes to get rid of the attachment to someone you love. Bud now brings honesty to the relationship by admitting to his own sad tale of contemplated suicide. He was in love with his best friend’s wife. He realized he couldn’t do anything about the situation, which is a morally different stand than his bosses, who have no qualms about their actions. Bud’s story ends with a darkly funny conclusion because he bought a gun, and then accidentally shot himself in the leg when being stopped by a policeman and trying to hide the weapon. It’s another example of how well the script intertwines the serious with the humorous, as his story makes Fran laugh despite the topic and her recent attempt to end herself.

Karl Matuschka (Johnny Seven), Fran’s brother-in-law, a tough-looking cab driver wearing a leather jacket, shows up at Dobisch’s office when Kirkeby is there. Since Fran hasn’t shown up for the last two days (she lives with him and her sister), he wants to know if anyone knows where she might be. The two men, a bit peeved because they haven’t had as much access to the apartment, believe Fran is shacked up with Bud, and are ready to point Karl at him. These men have no consideration or warmth for their employees, despite saying that they are all one big, happy family.

Meanwhile, Bud is being comical straining spaghetti with a tennis racket and saying he serves the meatballs with the racket. While he gets the dinner table ready he says, “It’s a wonderful thing, dinner for two.” Such simple words that convey the depth of Bud’s longing for companionship. He adds, “I used to feel like Robinson Crusoe. I mean shipwrecked among eight million people. And then one day I found a footprint in the sand, and there you were.” It’s corny, but it reminds us of the John Donne line that nobody can exist as an island. He is suggesting that he has met the person with whom he wants to share his isolated island. He says the only company for dinner before was in his pretending to eat with celebrities, which implies his mind game would lend some imaginary comfort and significance to his life. 

Karl shows up and sees Fran still in a robe and hears the end of Bud’s conversation about playing gin, and now “not taking advantage” of her like he did the day prior “in bed.” We have more deviance from the truth that lead to a comedy of errors. Karl tells Fran her sister is worried about her and tells her to get dressed and come home. Dreyfuss shows up and it comes out that Fran took an overdose of sleeping pills. Bud takes the blame, and Karl punches him. Bud is not telling the truth, but again his motive is a kind one, as he tries to divert Fran’s guilt over an attempted suicide due to involvement with a married man onto himself. He is responsible in part because he allowed Sheldrake to string Fran along, although unknowingly at first. Fran realizes what he is doing, and kisses him on the head before she leaves.

At work, Bud rehearses a speech to Sheldrake saying how he is taking Fran off his hands because Bud loves her. After enjoying the company of someone he cares about Bud can’t see himself being alone anymore. and is making enough money because of his promotion to ask Fran to marry him. His actions are naive because he hasn’t even asked her how she feels. Sheldrake however turns the tables on Bud, saying he is going to relieve Bud of worrying about Fran. He has moved out. But, it is not because of choosing Fran out of love. Olsen told his wife about Fran and she kicked Sheldrake out. Because Sheldrake can now be with Fran and she has demonstrated how much the loss of Sheldrake meant to her, Bud just says she is feeling better and went back to her family. Sheldrake shows his gratitude by making Bud the Assistant Director of Personnel, with an office next to his and the position includes all the executive perks. Bud says Fran deserves to be getting married, thinking Sheldrake will do the right thing. But Sheldrake’s response is he just wants to enjoy being a bachelor for a while, which implies he will just continue to sexually exploit Fran. 

As Bud observes his new position posted in the company lobby, he sees Fran. She says she thought Sheldrake would never leave his wife, apparently not having been told by Sheldrake that his wife gave him the boot (more deception). Bud knows the truth, but makes it appear that Fran’s love was not misplaced because he doesn’t want her to feel hopeless again, and maybe suicidal (a compassionate withholding of information). He says he wasn’t being “took” by Sheldrake but was using the man to get ahead at work, so things worked out for both of them, as he tries to hide emotional deprivation behind financial prosperity. She wants to know if he wants to walk with her to the subway, but he says he has a “heavy date.” He points to a woman near the lobby store, but it turns out she is waiting for someone else. Another lie, but not meant to harm but instead to spare himself grief by not being too close to her, and not trying to put himself between her and the person she supposedly loves. Fran said she wasn’t meeting Sheldrake and decided there wouldn’t be any contact between them until after the divorce. Her action shows discretion, which is another form of misdirection, but since she took chances with Sheldrake before, it may also point to her reluctance now that she knows more about Sheldrake’s womanizing. 

It’s New Year’s Eve, a time for a new start. Sheldrake threw out the duplicate key to Bud’s apartment when he thought he would get caught with incriminating evidence following Olsen’s disclosure. He is staying at a men’s club, so he wants to take Fran to Bud’s apartment to celebrate the evening. Sheldrake is still trying to hide his activities, which means he isn’t serious about committing to Fran. Bud flatly states that Sheldrake won’t be taking anyone to his place, especially not Fran. At this point he can’t tolerate the thought of the sleazy Sheldrake using his place to be intimate with the woman he fell in love with. Sheldrake threatens him with how quickly Bud can wind up on the street. Bud gives him a key, but it is the one to the executive washroom, noting he was “all washed up” there. Bud says he decided to be what Dr. Dreyfuss told him he should be, a “mensch,” a “human being.” His quitting shows he is no longer compromising his ethical, humane side to get ahead, and is finally able to say “no” to unscrupulous requests. 

The next scene has Bud packing up and getting ready to move out of the apartment. He picks up the gun he mentioned earlier, and puts it in a box, and one wonders if he will be thinking of doing himself in again over losing someone he loves. Dreyfuss comes by for ice for his New Year’s Eve party, and Bud offers him a bottle of champagne which the doctor refuses. Bud says he has to give up the apartment. This act reflects that for Bud the apartment is a reminder of a sordid, ethically compromised past which he was a part of and from which he wants to distance himself. Dreyfuss says Bud doesn’t owe him anything for treating Fran because he did it as a neighbor. The doctor’s action stands in contrast to the self-serving bosses at the company. Bud picks up the tennis racket which still has a string of spaghetti on it. He twirls it around his finger, a sort of culinary engagement ring, which implies that he can’t free himself from his feelings for Fran.

Fran and Sheldrake are at a New Year's Eve celebration (which contrasts with the moods of the main characters) and he says he reserved a room in Atlantic City because there was none available in town. He blames the long ride on Bud who refused to give him the apartment, especially if he was bringing Fran, which confuses him, not knowing of Bud’s feelings for her. He tells her Bud quit. She smiles and repeats a line that Bud said which was, “that’s the way it crumbles, cookiewise.” He doesn’t understand, but she states she would spell it out for him, “only I can’t spell,” a witty line for someone who has been wrongfully dismissed as not being smart. As the new year is sung in, Sheldrake realizes that Fran has left. She is starting the new year off by breaking away from the repetitive pain that tortured her.

As what happens at the end of a romantic movie, one of the lovers must run to find the other. Fran is heading up the stairs to Bud’s apartment when she hears a loud pop. She looks worried, obviously thinking about Bud shooting himself. She bangs on his door, but he has that bottle of champagne that is now open, so we know it was the sound of the cork we have heard. She sees the boxes and asks where he is going. He says someplace else because now he’s on his own. She tells him so is she, which lets him know that she is no longer with Sheldrake. He pours her a glass of champagne, which implies a way to celebrate their independence from Sheldrake and his kind, and their togetherness. She gets a pack of cards so they can finish that game of gin they started. He tells her he loves and adores her. She smiles and with no sentimentality tells him to “shut up and deal,” which is exactly what the two of them have decided to do, which is to make the best with the cards dealt them.

Next is the film noir movie Out of the Past.