It's always waiting for you in a cantina in Acapulco, fate or a bad bout of it. Fate, in this case, comes in the form of Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), a lanky looker with an enigmatic gaze. Gumshoe Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum in his first starring role) is on the job, tracking this fatal feline's location for a wronged lover (Kirk Douglas playing a smarmy gambler). But in Pablo's, a white-washed cantina with sombrero-shaped ashtrays on the tables, mariachi music in the air, and the bright southern light streaming in, business and pleasure have a way of getting mixed up. Out of the Past is never out of the past-it bountifully haunts the present as Bailey recounts his wounded tale, moving among Acapulco, Lake Tahoe, and small-town Bridgeport, California with an equal number of time signatures. Once abandoned for California, Mexico becomes a nostalgic haven, evoked by Greer as a place beyond the reach of law and obligation. But like director Jacques Tourneur's earlier films, such as The Leopard Man, the past can only offer up betrayal and disappointment, now tinged with tequila.