Out of the Past

"They say the day you die your name is written on a cloud."

"I sell gasoline, I make a small profit. With that I buy groceries. The grocer makes a profit. We call it earning a living. You may have heard of it somewhere."

"You don't get vaccinated for Florida, but you do for Mexico."

"You say to yourself, "How hot can it get?" Then, in Acapulco, you find out. I knew she had to wind up here because if you want to go south, here's where you get the boat. All I had to do was wait. Near the plaza was a little cafe, called La Mar Azul next to a movie house. I sat there in the afternoons and drank beer. I used to sit there half-asleep with the beer and the darkness. Only that music from the movie next door kept jarring me awake."

"And then I saw her, coming out of the sun, and I knew why Whit didn't care about that forty grand."

"I knew I'd go every night until she showed up. I knew she knew it. I sat there and drank bourbon and I shut my eyes, but I didn't think of a joint on 56th Street. I knew where I was and what I was doing...what a sucker I was. I even knew she wouldn't come the first night. But I sat there, grinding it out."

"She waited until it was late. And then she walked in out of the moonlight, smiling."

"I never saw her in the daytime. We seemed to live by night. What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoked. I didn't know where she lived. I never followed her. All I ever had to go on was a place and time to see her again. I don't know what we were waiting for. Maybe we thought the world would end. Maybe we thought it was a dream and we'd wake up with a hangover in Niagara Falls. I wired Whit but I didn't tell him. 'I'm in Acapulco,' I said. 'I wish you were here.' And every night I went to meet her. How did I know she'd ever show up? I didn't. What stopped her from taking a boat to Chile or Guatemala? Nothing. How big a chump can you get to be? I was finding out. And then she'd come along like school was out, and everything else was just a stone which sailed at the sea."

"It was a nice little joint with bamboo furniture and Mexican gimcracks. One little lamp burned. It was all right. And the rain hammering like that on the window made it good to be in there."

"She's a clever little girl and she's always a hop, skip, and a jump ahead."

"I don't like playing games when I'm the fall guy. You might remember that, Whit."

"It was the bottom of the barrel and I scraped it. But I didn't care. I had her."

"We found a little movie house in North Beach. We were on the run. We went to places we never would have seen in our lives. And after a while, we grew a little more sure of ourselves. We drifted back to more familiar places. Ball parks and the race tracks. Why not? After all, there was one chance in a million we'd bump into our past."

"It was meeting her somewhere like in the first times. There was still that something about her that got me - a kind of magic or whatever it was. I held her and we could laugh because we were together again. We'd played it smart and forgotten nothing. Forgotten nothing except one thing. He had followed her."

"I wasn't sorry for him or sore at her. I wasn't anything."

"[to Whit] You liked me because you could use me. You could use me because I was smart. I'm not smart anymore. I run a gas station."

"[to Meta] If you'll drop this Junior League patter, we may get this conversation down to where it belongs."

"I think I'm in a frame...I don't know. All I can see is the frame. I'm going in there now to look at the picture."

"You see, I've got the files that were in your briefcase. I also know the address of the Treasury Department. That's the theory, isn't it? Keep the files away from the Treasury boys. Save Whit from doing ten years in a federal pen. Now you correct me if I make a mistake...You get the files and you also get Eels' body, in case you want to keep it from the cops...I want the affidavit that Meta put in Eels' safe when she took the files out. The lie that somebody put on paper that I killed a guy named Jack Fisher. Cause you see, I only buried him. And you don't get the gas for being the undertaker...And you won't need Whit. All you need is Meta to unlock that safe in Eels' office. I hope Meta's still around."

"[to Kathie] Did it take much persuasion to make you say I killed Fisher? Come on, feed my ego. Tell me he beat ya, tell me he had to drag every word out of ya."

"And cheer up Kathie. You'll get out of it all right. You always have."

"When you see her, you'll understand better."

"My feelings? About ten years ago, I hid them somewhere and haven't been able to find them."

"[to Jeff] You'll never be happy until you square yourself."

"[to Kathie] You dirty little phony. Go on lie some more. Tell me how you handled things for me in San Francisco. Tell me it was all Joe's idea. Go on, Kathie, show me how you're gonna squirm your way out this time. What a sucker you must think I am. I took you back when you came whimpering and crawling. I should have kicked your teeth in. No, I'm not going to. Not now Kathie. We're gonna let the law push you around...You're going to take the rap and play along. You're gonna make every exact move I tell ya. If you don't, I'll kill ya. And I'll promise you one thing. It won't be quick. I'll break you first. You won't be able to answer a telephone or open a door without thinking: 'This is it.' And when it comes, it still won't be quick. And it won't be pretty. You can take your choice."

"[to Jeff] Look I crossed you once. I know better than to try a second time."

"You can't make deals with a dead man, Jeff."

"I never told you I was anything but what I am. You just wanted to imagine I was. That's why I left you. Now we're back to stay."

"[to Jeff] You dirty, double-crossing rat."

"A dame with a rod is like a guy with a knitting needle."

"[to Jeff] She must be quite a dame. A wild goose with 40 G's...You know, for a smart guy, that Sterling sure trusts you, don't he?"

"Don't try to pay me off with pitch handed to you with this cheap piece of baggage."

"Marny: Two things I can smell inside a hundred feet. Burning hamburger and a romance."

"Meta Carson: For a man who appears to be clever, you can certainly act like an idiot."

"A MAN - Trying to run away from his past... A WOMAN - Trying to escape her future!"

"A guy without a fortune! A girl with too much past!"

"Robert Mitchum - Jeff Bailey, aka Jeff Markham"

"Jane Greer - Kathie Moffat"

"Kirk Douglas - Whit Sterling"

"Rhonda Fleming - Meta Carson"

"Richard Webb - Jim 'Jimmy'"

"Steve Brodie - Jack Fisher"

"Virginia Huston - Ann Miller"

"Paul Valentine - Joe Stephanos"

"Dickie Moore - The Kid"

"Ken Niles - Leonard Eels"