The Last Seduction

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 The Last Seduction (1994), along with Body Heat and Basic Instinct, break ground in the film noir genre by not punishing the femme fatale characters for using male sexual obsession for their own benefit. These are scary women, but there is an empowerment factor introduced in these films that leads to female characters in movies like The Piano and The Contender, and subsequent films and TV shows, that attack the sexual double standard.

 

The film begins with a jazz score, which can point to the rule-breaking, subversive nature of the main character. There is an overhead shot of a statue of a large bird mounted atop a New York City building as the camera looks down on the traffic below. Is the fowl a predatory animal ready to swoop down on its prey, like the main character? On the office desk of Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino, who would have received an Oscar nomination if the film hadn’t originally appeared on cable TV) is a display with coins in it stating they represent the “One Ounce Liberty Dollar.” This shot may suggest that Bridget values her independence which money can secure for her. She is a tough supervisor whipping her male subordinates with an emasculating attitude to sell the coin sets. The scene stresses a reversal of gender dominance.

 

Meanwhile, Bridget’s husband, Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman), a sleazy doctor, has a briefcase full of prescription drugs that he is selling to a dealer. Clay (something Bridget can mold for her own purposes?) thinks he is going to be shot when the pusher’s henchman pulls a gun. But Clay is paid his money, although he must store it on his person as he picks up the literal and figurative “dirty” money from the ground. 

 Bridget is beautiful and sexy in her short skirts. She mostly wears dark stockings perhaps to don the standard color of the villain. At home, Bridget impatiently waits for her husband’s return from the meeting. She apathetically watches a news story about the deaths of individuals, which emphasizes the tone of danger in the story as well as Bridget’s indifference to what happens to others. Clay arrives looking pregnant (another reverse gender image) with his shirt stuffed with cash. Bridget calls him an “idiot” for walking around like that. Clay lashes out and slaps her hard across the face. Bad move. That violence against a woman immediately puts us on Bridget’s side in this marriage. And, it is the act that sets Bridget off on her darker war against males. Clay immediately apologizes and blames it on the intensity of the meeting. He flashes the $700,000 he has acquired and she appears to be won over by the money, which he admits she masterminded, showing her as the real brains of the operation. She licks a packet of the cash, an image combining sexuality with greed. 

 He wants to celebrate by going out on the town, but she encourages him to take a shower first, since he smells, as he says, of “fear.” Unfortunately for him he is up against a fearless female. She empties out a condom box (another item linking her to sexual power), places it on the bed, and writes a note. She has a talent which allows her to write backwards, which implies that she can reverse the usual perception of women as seen by society. It also may suggest that what she shows on the surface is the opposite of what she is planning beneath the deceptive appearance she displays. Her note, which Clay knows must be viewed in a mirror to decode, says they can’t celebrate without prophylactics, so she went out to buy some. It is meant as a delaying tactic, but Clay catches on quickly and realizes she has run off with the money. He is undressed and sees her dashing off in the street. He yells in a threatening voice that she “better run.”

 

Bridget had no intention of sharing the cash with Clay. She just used him as a pawn to get what she wanted, while he is the one committing the crime and putting himself in danger. She grabs a cab to an underpass where she has a car waiting for her escape. Before she drives away, she pulls off her wedding ring, showing how the marriage means nothing to her, and indicates her freedom from being attached to a man. 

 She stops for gas at a small town called Beston (not really the ‘best” place to be) in New York State on her way to Chicago, which is still twelve hours away. Bridget seems impatient and annoyed by the tedious trip. She eyes a bar where Mike Swale (Peter Berg) looks like he is in a funk as he drinks with a couple of pals, Chris (Brien Varady) and Shep (Dean Norris). We learn that he didn’t like living in this dead-end town, went to Buffalo, says it “didn’t work out,” and is back. He will not elaborate, and we find out why later. But his attitude makes him a prime target for the exciting Bridget. An old flame, Stacy (Donna W. Scott) greets Mike as she heads to the counter. One of the men acts like an adolescent, making a lewd gesture. Mike warns that the women living there are all “anchors,” suggesting that they will tie men down to this loser place. His words indicate that he still wants to escape. One of his pals asks if Mike has lost his “dick” for not wanting to pursue the local women, and it turns out to be a relevant statement when we learn what really happened in Buffalo. Mike is wearing a wedding ring and he takes it off (which echoes Bridget’s earlier action). The act indicates he was married in Buffalo, and also wants freedom. He wants to leave Beston, but tells his friend he needs to grow a new set of “balls” to do so. Does this suggest he felt psychologically castrated by what happened to him in Buffalo? 

Bridget walks in and demands a Manhattan (a place she just left but her sense of city superiority to this hick town is symbolized by her order). The bartender is hostile to this entitled female and ignores her in an exaggerated way. She then voices disdain for the demure sexual role placed upon women by saying who does she have to “suck” to get a drink. But her words are also sexually alluring so she works both sides of the coin (which is what was objectively displayed on her desk earlier). Mike shows shock but smiles at Bridget’s language, which excites him, since she is like a shot of adrenalin to this sleepy town. His friend Shep calls her “city trash,” and asks what Clay sees in Bridget. His response is “maybe a new set of balls.” He wants to reassert his masculinity, and he sees Bridget as an opportunity to do that.

 To recapture his manhood Mike gets the bartender to give Bridget her drink, and he pays for it. Her initial response is to tell him to get lost. He then boasts to her that he’s “hung like a horse.” She comically calls him “Mr. Ed,” and she quickly assesses that this handsome guy is someone she can use for her own gratification. She becomes the sexual aggressor, unzipping his pants and feeling around inside, humorously saying she wants to examine the goods before buying. They go to his place after she interrogates him to make sure it meets her basic standards of livability. Bridget wastes no time on sentimentality or being romantic. She is tougher than most men pretend to be.

 

The next morning, after they had sex, Mike wakes up and discovers that Bridget is already dressed and is raiding his refrigerator. She acquired a place to stay and food, which makes her sound like a prostitute. But she wanted Mike for sex, so she is not being exploited. She dismisses him as she wants to make a private call. She rolls her eyes at how easily he responds to her commands, like a pet dog. She eats some pie, which has the note “Love, Grandma” on its covering, and then uses the plate to put out her cigarette, which shows her scorn for anything resembling emotional warmth. She contacts a no-nonsense lawyer, Frank Griffith (J. T. Walsh). (It is funny that she says she is in “Mayberry” and Andy “Griffith” played the role of the wholesome sheriff of Mayberry on TV). During the conversation, we find out that they previously were sexual partners, and, fitting her personality, Bridget puts down his sexual abilities. She asks about her monetary liability if she buys anything with the money she took, and he says Clay would be entitled to half of anything bought before a divorce. He advises to hold onto the cash and stay put since Chicago is where she has a friend and Clay will look for her there. Frank’s advice causes Bridget to address her agenda in Beston. She coldly leaves the mostly undressed Mike in the other room without a word. This scene mirrors how she left Clay without his clothes on, a sort of play on getting caught in a vulnerable position, with one’s pants down.

She drives into town and her hard, ill-mannered ways contrast sharply with the townspeople who all say “good morning” to her. She does not return their polite greetings and even eyes them suspiciously, as if sincerity does not exist in her mind. She finds a job managing the sales solicitation department of an outfit called Interstate Insurance Company, since she has experience in the field. She secures confidentiality by using the male perception of a woman being a victim by saying her husband beat her and doesn’t want her real name on any official records. Her boss, Bob Trotter (Herb Mitchell) buys her story and notices her trick of being able to sign her name backwards. He doesn't realize that the fake name she uses, Wendy Kroy, is New York spelled backwards (if you drop off the “dy” of the first name). Again, we have her inverting the truth. 

 Coincidentally, Mike also works at the same company and runs into her as she leaves Bob’s office. She finds this fact inconvenient and tells him that he should consider the sex they had as just a fantasy because she doesn’t want him to mess up her “image.” She continually pretends to be something she is not for her own purposes. Here, she most likely doesn’t want it known that she is sexually adventurous as a small town will not accept a woman with that trait which is usually associated with men. 

In her private office she again calls Frank and tells him she has a six-month work contract. He wants plausible deniability, and doesn’t want to know where she is so that Clay can’t get him to legally reveal anything. After he served Clay with divorce papers, per Bridget’s directions, Clay asked about Bridget’s whereabouts because he needs money to pay a loan shark. Frank advises her to send some cash to Clay so he will not be so desperate to hunt her down. She is reluctant, and Frank jokingly asks, “anyone check you for a heartbeat recently?” since she acts so uncaring. She agrees to call her husband, which she does. Clay reaches for the phone and his hand has been splinted, the results of an encounter with the loan shark. She calls him through the operator so he will not know where the call is coming from. When he answers, he fishes for the location from the operator, but the smart Bridget immediately disconnects the call as this literal battle between the sexes continues.

Bridget returns to the same bar and maintains her sarcasm toward the bartender. She has the same attitude toward Mike. She looks irritated by his joining her by asking aren’t there any other bars in town for him to frequent. He shows he can be condescendingly witty like her by saying he couldn’t get any info on her from the other secretaries. When she gets pissed off about the secretary reference he interrupts her by showing he knows exactly her job position. She likes his edgy comment and they have sex outside the back door of the establishment. He, being more traditionally feminine, wanting more of a commitment, asks where he fits in with her plans. She plays the more masculine role again by calling him her “designated fuck,” and walks off, sexually satisfied. 

 

They continue having sex in his car and apartment, keeping her place off-limits, wanting separate autonomy. But he says that he doesn’t like being emotionally distanced. She is using him “like a sex object,” which she admits is accurate. Their encounters stress the reversal of the usual female/male positions (recalling again her writing backwards). When he pushes to find out what she is “afraid of” since she will not open up to him, she plays the tender female who has been hurt in the past and fears falling in love with him, making her vulnerable. Then she undercuts her words by flatly saying, “Will that do?” She says she likes her privacy which maintains her emotional sovereignty.

 

Mike isn’t enough of a diversion for her and she is bored in this small town, biding her time pending the divorce, and wants to return to New York. She calls Clay again, but she takes her lawyer’s advice and protects herself from Clay tracing her calls by quickly asking him to give her the phone number of the public phone outside. She is right to be suspicious because Clay has a private investigator, Harlan (Bill Nunn) tapping his phone. Harlan has an early version of a mobile phone and Clay gives her that number so Harlan can trace it. Clay jumps around to simulate being out of breath running to the outside line and opens the window to make it sound like he is in a public phone booth. When she calls he wanders away and she insightfully wonders why it’s quiet. She specifically says she is entitled to the cash because he hit her, but we know she was plotting to steal from him already. But her mentioning this act stresses her desire for revenge against the abusive ways of men, a tendency that she exploits for her own purposes. She says she needs to get back to New York and is willing to pay off the loan shark and Clay’s private detective, which he admits to hiring to suggest honesty. But Clay and Harlan didn’t deactivate the home phone line in the apartment and when it rings Bridget quickly realizes the scam and hangs up. After she phones Frank he assures her that the most Clay got was an area code, which is what Harlan acquired, showing she is in “cow country.” 

 

Bridget’s desire for privacy on her terms is stressed as Mike must apologize for accidentally walking in on her in the bathroom. Also, she tells him that a woman loses half her acceptability at a job if others know who she is sleeping with, another example of the need for her to put on an act of sexual respectability. When he touches her as they enter the workplace, in order to maintain autonomy, she smacks him and pretends to accuse him of sexual harassment in the atrium of the building, turning the female employees against Mike. Again, we have the appearance of the opposite of what is true displayed because Bridget must hide her real self to get what she wants given society’s preconceptions concerning women.

Meanwhile, Clay is giving prescriptions for drugs to sleazy visitors for cash. Harlan says he has nothing to go on to find Bridget. Clay is not a dummy, and when he happens to look at a New York poster hanging on his wall in a mirror, he sees the city’s name in reverse, which clues him into what name Bridget has used as an alias. He knows she is obsessed with leaving the farm orchards behind and returning to the Big Apple. He gives Harlan the backwards name of Wendy Kroy to investigate.

 

After five days Bridget approaches Mike at the bar, and he is still angry at her. She has moved to a townhouse and is actually willing to let him visit her there, a big move for her. He says he wants them to share stuff, and she actually starts to open up by suggesting what might happen when a person steals a large sum of money. He cuts her off, assuming she is just giving him an exaggerated story. She is the girl who cried wolf, told too many lies and now nobody believes the truth. He says being a claims adjuster, some clients share more “intimacies” about themselves in a few minutes than he has learned about her. He relates about one woman who wished she knew the sum of her husband’s insurance policy earlier because she would have killed him herself. Mike says you can learn a great deal about a credit report, and saw that the woman’s husband was a cheater because there were three credit cards he authorized for use by three different women. And, he had an apartment in his name only. The gathering of disreputable information piques Bridget’s larcenous and vengeful interests. 

 

Bridget gets Mike to go to the company after hours to make a list of clients whose credit reports show credit card authorizations for women other than wives or daughters and who hold separate living places in their own names. She wants men who carry at least a quarter-of-a-million-dollar life insurance policies as incentives for the wives. She talks about selling murder to the female spouses of these cheating men, but just as a practical joke. She gets one woman on the phone and asks about the credit card of one of the women he was involved with by pretending that is who she is talking to, while knowing it is actually the wife. The spouse starts to cry, saying her husband has cheated before. Bridget says that someone she knew had her philandering husband killed and that there are people who handle this activity. The woman actually seems interested and that is when Bridget says she is just kidding. Mike says Bridget is sick if she thinks what she did is fun, but she says if he wants to get closer, he must share in her messing with people's minds. She offers sex at her place as a reward, so, she is also messing with Mike’s head. He makes the call. Her phone scheme fits in with the theme of the film of avenging the deeds of disreputable males. In a way, the wrong actions of men have created the monster that is Bridget. 

 

At Bridget’s place, she asks Mike about his ex-wife, a guess on her part that he was married and wanting to make up for lost time. In a switch, he doesn’t want to talk now, and Bridget reminds him about wanting to open up. He says his ex, Trish, was someone he married in Buffalo and it was a mistake. He said all he wanted, until recently, was to get out of this small, dull town. She presses him about what changed. He says it was her, coming from someplace “big” and choosing him, which means he is “bigger” than Beston. She has made him feel exceptional by having him win the sophisticated, sexy woman contest. He doesn’t realize he is just a tool to be used for Bridget’s purposes. He does understand that she continually makes him know that she is “bigger” than he is. So, she alternately builds him up and lets him down. But, like many people in denial about a lopsided relationship, Mike believes that she will see the light and will come to realize that he is her equal.

 

The receptionist at the office tells her a “black man” (Harlan) was looking for her. She rightly assumes that since she is in hiding, anybody seeking her is connected to her husband. She admits to Mike at his place that someone is after her, but doesn’t disclose the details, wanting to use Mike as a protective buffer. She tells him she wants to carry out a murder of a cheating, wife-beating husband, a man insured by another company to add distance to the crime. She says the man deserves it, justifying the act based on the man getting what he deserves. She probably actually believes that part. She manipulates him emotionally, saying if he loves her, she will do it with her, and wants him to go with her to New York after getting payment. Mike’s first reaction is that she is sick and needs psychiatric help, but he has been mesmerized by her which is why he doesn’t permanently leave her or alert the authorities.

 

After Mike walks out to get some space, Bridget shows a moment of vulnerability, saying to herself that she is “scared.” Her instincts are correct again. When she gets into her car, Harlan gets in, too. But she has brought some pepper spray to a gunfight, and Harlan’s pistol trumps her weapon. She tries to make a deal with him to split the money, but he isn’t buying her ploy. She says the money is in the bank (but we have seen she hid it in her house), and gives him a phone number to get the balance. He gets back into the car after the phony phone call at a booth, but he was smart enough to take her car keys to foil her plan to drive away. He realizes the cash is at her place and they start to drive there. She starts to ask him if it’s true about black men having large penises, and says she’ll show him her ass if he shows his genitalia. He dismisses her at first, but she flirtatiously persists. There is a shot of her looking at the dashboard which shows the car is equipped with only a driver's side airbag. We know Bridget is up to lethal no good. She wears him down and Harlan releases his seat belt to unzip his pants. She revs up the engine and speeds right into a pole. The airbag deploys, saving Bridget, but Harlan is propelled right through the windshield. She has again flipped the switch of gender power by using the male fixation on sex to her own benefit.

 

Bridget continues playing the prescribed female role of victim to control men at the hospital where she is treated after the impact with the airbag. (It is a Catholic hospital because there is a crucifix with Christ on the wall in her room. The decor is ironic, associating her with someone who suffered). The policeman questioning her agrees to keep her name confidential to protect her from her abusive husband. He asks why the victim’s penis was exposed, and she says that Harlan threatened to “impale” her with his large member. Here she is also working male racial stereotypes to her advantage with the police to reverse the reality of what really occurred.

 

Mike shows up at the hospital with flowers, feeling very sorry he left her unprotected. After all this time he still is under her sexual spell and doesn’t realize that others need to be protected from her. He rightly admits that he doesn’t “understand” her. She utilizes the present situation to say that killing a worthless woman abuser is justified, and morality is subjective because the President authorizes killing often. She says she can’t stay in Beston much longer, possibly referring to his earlier statement about it being too “small” for him and her. She gets up to depart and when he asks if she has been discharged, she fires back that he is always following rules, tying him to the confines of the small town from which he wants to escape.

 

She calls Clay knowing that since he is aware of where she is she must buy some time to prevent further intimidation. She is right again because Clay has Harlan’s replacement, a local cop, Bert (Mike Lisenco), who he has promised some of the recovered money, sitting outside her house. He also threatens to expose her culpability in the drug deal if she tries to inform the police of his involvement. He says he is “interviewing sociopaths” who will delight in doing horrible things to her if she does not cooperate. She says she wants a week to wrap things up where she is before returning the money to him. She agrees to send him $15,000 so he can pay his loan shark some cash. He asks why she double-crossed him, and she says because he struck her. He rightly says that is just an excuse, but she says now she gets to hit him back, and adds after hanging up “hard.” We know she wants the money and her revenge.

 

She lies to Mike, telling him she is going to New York for the weekend to keep him away. Playing the typical unthreatening female role of housekeeper to disarm her opponent, she heats up store-bought cookies to make it look as if she baked them, and walks to the stakeout man’s car wearing an apron. However, she was also banging nails into a strip of wood. Quite a contrast in cooking stuff up. She has the wood attached to the straps at the back of the apron, like a scorpion concealing the stinger, pretends to drop a cookie, and places the puncture-enhanced object under the car’s rear tire. She later calls a cab and instructs the driver to take her to Buffalo. When Bert tries to tail her, the nails do their job.

 

In Buffalo, Bridget, a sort of evil genius when it comes to human psychology, suspects that there is something she can use concerning Mike’s marriage. She bribes an official to find out where Trish, Mike’s ex, lives. She visits Trish (the one-named Serena), but we do not see the meeting to heighten the reveal later in the story. But, Bridget’s smile shows that the information she has received is satisfying. Meanwhile, Mike, at the local Beston bar, finds out from his friend Chris that Bridget asked him about the one secret Mike had that he wouldn’t want her to know. Chris assumed it was about Buffalo, but he says he didn’t say anything. Chris, showing the primitive male desire to boast to other men about sexual conquests, tells Mike that Bridget offered to give him oral sex for the information. Mike, displaying primal jealousy, hits Chris, and gets him to admit he was the one who made a pass at Bridget. 

 

Mike leaves extremely upset about learning of Bridget’s questions about his past. He gets drunk and calls her, thinking she is in New York, just to leave a message. (Even Bridget’s phone machine message is scary, with her voice darkly comic, saying, “Don’t be afraid. It’s only a machine”). He says he loves her, and Bridget, listening, rolls her eyes again at what she most likely considers pitiable sentimentality. But he now sounds as if he would do anything if only she loved him, too, which seems to interest her. She starts to draw on a pad of paper next to her phone. She somehow knows exactly how Mike will act. He drives over there intoxicated, and bangs into trash cans, mirroring his reckless state. He enters the place and heads to the answering machine to erase his humiliating message. He sees that Bridget has drawn a heart with their two names inside it. He takes the sheet of paper, believing that she has loving feelings for him. Bridget is actually hiding under the bed, which both physically and psychologically indicates her concealing what she is really up to.

 

Bridget continues to stage her plan. When Mike thinks she has returned from New York he goes to Bridget’s place and finds a planted round-trip ticket which falsely indicates she went to Miami, which is where the cheating man lives who she suggested they kill for money. After letting him pressure her she admits that she killed the man and then shows money in a suitcase (the cash she took from Clay) that she pretends was paid by the widow to commit the murder. He is shocked and she tells him that his provincial ideas of morality show that there is no love that he feels is worth killing for. She is again hitting at his fear of feeling “small.” She kicks him out and then, alone, laughs at her convincing performance.

 

At work Mike goes to Bridget’s office saying he is trying to accept what is happening. She says she has money now and nothing is stopping her from returning to New York. She has driven him to a desperate mental place and he bites on her bait, asking what he would have to do to be able to be with her. She says they must have a “partnership of equals,” which means he must kill a man for which the wife will pay a large amount of money. She says that will be the end of it, they will be equals, and they can live off the money in New York together. She seals the deal with a kiss and sits in his lap, a man’s most vulnerable sexual spot. But, he says that he doesn’t want to be with her that much to be like her, and leaves. 

 

However, Bridget has another ace up her sleeve (an apt cliche here since it is something hidden to con someone). She writes a letter pretending (what else) to be Trish, saying she is moving to Beston and will be working at Interstate, assuring him nobody has to know their secret. The letter states she just wants to be near him. Bridget is tightening the noose around Mike, making him desperate to find a means of escape. As Bridget expected, Mike shows up saying he will do what she wants as long as he never has to return to Beston and revisit his past.

 

To stop the observing Bert from following her, Bridget once more uses sexual preconceptions as a weapon. She calls the police and says that a man in a car tried to expose himself to her little girl. A police car pulls up and detains Bert as Mike picks up Bridget and they drive off. She has written him a “cheat sheet” to memorize so he knows what to do involving the killing of their victim. As he recites the instructions that Bridget wrote we watch his dramatized actions. Mike thinks he’s going after a guy named Cahill who is in his apartment where he meets with one of his extramarital girlfriends. Mike has a gun and a knife and he’s supposed to tell the man he’s just there to rob the place. He is to get the man to handcuff his arms and legs and then Mike is supposed to gag him. After that he is to knock him out and stab him to death (no noise).  There is one extra act he must do which is to turn out the lights. She says it’s a psychological act that denotes completing an “unpleasant chore.” Of course one should realize by now that she has sent him to kill Clay.

Mike is supposed to make sure the victim doesn’t make a sound. Why? Because Clay might say things that would lead Mike to realize it’s a set up. Indeed, Clay is able to say he just writes prescriptions and has nothing worth stealing. But Mike knows Cahill isn’t a doctor. Still, Mike is about to stab Clay but then throws the knife down and says out loud, “I’m sorry Wendy, I just can’t do it!” Clay’s eyes widen and he yells behind his gag, with realization, the name “Wendy.” He hops over to their wedding picture. Mike removes the gag and Clay fills him in about the stolen money and how she sent him to kill Clay. He realizes she seduced Mike, probably by the way he sounded disappointed he let her down. Mike says the mailbox has “Cahill” on it. Clay concludes that she is close by so she was able to relabel the mailbox. Everything is a deception. Clay is very smart and can see the chess moves Bridget is making. He says that she will call the cops and frame Mike for the murder. But, he realizes that she would have to check that Mike did the deed. So, Clay says there must be a signal. Mike realizes it is the turning out of the lights that would let her know Mike killed Clay. 

Outside, Bridget, calmly smoking a cigarette (she smokes often, showing her cool by using the film noir prop), sees the lights go off. After entering the dark apartment the framed marriage photo slides to her feet. Mike, holding the gun, turns on the lights and she says she wouldn’t have turned Mike in. Clay calls it “bullshit,” and comments that the suitcase she brought in would support her charade that the two reconciled and the jealous Mike came to kill Clay. But, he is still in handcuffs. Despite what Mike has learned, he doesn’t want to wholly believe that Bridget doesn’t care for him and so he didn’t free Clay, who is in the way of Mike being with Bridget. She always is prepared for contingencies and uses the fact that Clay is bound to empty a can of Mace down his throat, killing him. Mike says she isn’t human, but she says she did it for “us” (substitute “me” for “us”). 

 

Bridget has a backup plan as she probably thought Mike would not go through with the killing. She tells him that it will look like he killed her husband and then raped her. She starts to undress. As he is ready to call the police she uses her secret weapon, Trish. We get a flashback that dramatizes what probably happened with her and Mike in Buffalo. It turns out Mike married a transsexual who was still anatomically a male, and Bridget uses slurs and degrading language to stoke Mike’s shame and anger. Bridget knows he will want to retaliate by proving his manhood. He is irrational now after what has happened and wants to get back at Bridget. He hits her and then rapes her as he says he will play her sick game. Bent over the sofa, she calls the cops. The 911 operator hears her crying out that she is being raped and that her rapist killed her husband. 

Mike is in jail and meets with the Public Defender (Jack Shearer) who tells him that the keys he had to enter the apartment were duplicates which the prosecution will say he made. He says they need just one piece of hard evidence. Mike says there may be one thing. There is a cut to Bridget, enjoying her wealth by being chauffeured in a limo. She comes out of her old apartment building and burns that one bit of evidence, the mailbox label that reads “Cahill.” She then drives away after successfully completing her last seduction.

 

Yes, Bridget is an amoral creature. But one can’t help but admire her intelligence. She uses the accepted stereotypical role of the powerless woman to satisfy her own desires and avenge herself, although unlawfully and selfishly, against male dominance. 

The next film is The Ruling Class.