John Cromwell‘s Dead Reckoning (’47) is a second-rate Humphrey Bogart noir in which Lizabeth Scott (24 or 25 at the time) plays a femme fatale from hell. Her character is alternately called “Coral” or “Mike”, but her venality is such that she’s never quite human.

Screenwriters Steve Fisher and Oliver H.P. Garrett provide some agreeably snappy dialogue, but the plot is impossible — anti-logical, convoluted, never touches bottom. The closing death scene, however, is rather good. Her head wrapped in bandages, Scott has been fatally wounded in a car crash and is only minutes from death. A former WWII parachuter, Bogart sidles up bedside and gently talks her through the death process.

“It’s like going out the jump door. Just let go, Mike…don’t fight it. Remember all the guys who’ve done it before you. You’ll have plenty of company, Mike. High-class company. Geronimo, Mike.”