Killer's Kiss
by Stanley Kubrick
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Frank Silvera, Irene Kane, Jamie Smith, Jerry Jarrett, Mike DanaDirector: Stanley Kubrick
Brand: SILVERS,FRANK
Cinematographer: Stanley Kubrick
Editor: Stanley Kubrick
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Producer: Morris Bousel
Writer: Howard Sackler
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Full Screen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 67 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-06-29
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Killer's Kiss
Movie Review: Striking cult movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
The Noir film in the fifties reached its absolute expansion and sheer maturity, dealing with all sort of tragic experiences, the loser gambler, the renegade kid, the abominable fear of the atomic treatment, the counterspies, the antihero raising, or the most intimate prototypes of the last page of the newspapers. Indeed, a whole generation accustomed to fabulous examples of the genre demanded major inventiveness and lurked in the intimacy of the dark projection halls. It would be said that any serious filmmaker should to make his incursion in the genre; from Orson Welles (Mr. Arkadin and Touch of evil), Hitchcock ( Strangers on a train), John Huston ( Asphalt jungle), or names we used to associate with other genres such as Anthony Mann, renowned directors such Robert Wise (The set up), Fritz Lang ( The big heat) Elia Kazan (Panic in the streets), Billy Wilder (Sunset boulevard), Edward Dymtrik (The street with no name and The sniper) threw their respective hats in the arena. But the emerging figure of a genius in progress as Stanley Kubrick who just opened his enormous wings, immediately captured the attention around him.
Killer's kiss was Stanley Kubrick's second feature film that, although its low budget, achieved a distinguished acknowledgement at the most unexpected levels, due among other details its ambitious display of visual unity, of harrowing sequences as Davy's manager murder in hands of the members of the Rapallo' s clan where the visual devices remind us to the Third man, the amazing chase throughout the roofs of the buildings, the ironical gaze around Manhattan's fantasies as well as suggestive elements that implies seduction, and violence.
Another remarkable factors to take into account are the handle of the inner tension of the characters, the employment of the time as metaphysical device, the existential uncertainness of our loser boxer, lonely and hopeless that is corresponded absolutely by his girlfriend Gloria, a dancer of a dark nightclub and the final sequence where the use of female mannequins are employed as defensive weapons in the hair raising fistfight.
Summary of Killer's Kiss
Stanley Kubrick's second feature film, Killer's Kiss, made the world take notice. The young moviemaker won acclaim for this dazzling film noir about a struggling New York boxer (Jamie Smith) whose life is imperiled when he protects a nightclub dancer (Irene Kane) from her gangster boss (Frank Silvera). "Using his camera as a sandpaper block, Kubrick has stripped away the veneer from the prizefight and dancehall worlds," the New York Mirror proclaimed. Killer's Kissnot only lends considerable insight into future Kubrick classicssuch as The Killing and Full Metal Jacketbut it is also a remarkable film in its own right: the boxing match may bethe most vicious this side of Raging Bull, and the famed final battle remains an action tour-de-force. "An ambitious photographer...challenges the movie capital with Killer's Kiss," theNew York Daily News enthused. "The suspenseful venture augurs well for young Stanley Kubrick!"Stanley Kubrick wrote the story and produced, edited, shot, and directed his second feature like a one-man studio, and his developing cinematic intelligence turns an otherwise unremarkable story into a memorable if slight film, a hint at masterpieces to come. Jamie Smith is a washed up prizefighter who rushes to the rescue of his platinum blonde dime-a-dancer neighbor (Irene Kane) when she's attacked by her dapper hoodlum boss (Frank Silvera). Smith and Kane fall in love, but their plans to leave gritty New York for a simpler life in Seattle are jeopardized when jealous Silvera sends his thugs to lean on Smith. Mistaken identities and an overzealous beating lead to murder, kidnapping, and a desperate confrontation between Smith and Silvera in an eerie warehouse full of mannequins. Disembodied heads, swinging hands, and the blank stares of rows of lifeless dummies become a cold counterpoint to the sweaty, almost primal fight as Silvera wields an ax and Smith counters with a pike like gladiators in an abstract arena. The gray cityscape of New York (shot on location) turns into stark black and white and the city looms over the characters as the tension tightens. Kubrick's sophisticated use of sound and austere visual style creates a hyper-realistic atmosphere, which he would put to even better use in his follow-up film, the heist classic The Killing. --Sean Axmaker
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