For years, I thought Elvis Costello’s “Poor Napoleon” was a near-perfect song, except for one incredibly bad line – “Just like that place where they take your spine/and turn it into soap flakes.” Then, last night we watched Out of the Past, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. I realized that “Poor Napoleon” – full of heightened drama and murmured threats – was perhaps Costello’s ultimate film-noir song, even more than “Watching the Detectives.” That line was just Costello’s version of the kind of thing that would come out of hardened, wised-up gangster's mouth, or his girlfriend’s.

Thank you, Robert Mitchum. Thank you.