Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas vie for the honor of being betrayed by Jane Greer, the most desirable of devil dolls, in this quintessential noir masterpiece. A grubby private eye (Mitchum) is hired by a sleek gangster (Douglas) to rein in his fugitive frail (Greer). Complications ensue when dick falls for dame, hard. The serpentine plot, which ricochets from Manhattan to Mexico to Frisco to Tahoe, is spiced with some of the wittiest wisecracks ever, with every step of the dizzying adventure rendered in high noir style by Tourneur, art director Albert D’Agostino, and cameraman Nicholas Musuraca. Equal measures of poetry, poignancy, and hardboiled fatalism. The definitive film noir? You be the judge.