Kiss Me Deadly
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Movie Reviews of Kiss Me Deadly
Movie Review: Kiss Me Deadly
Summary: 5 Stars
Condemned by censors, panned by critics, and banned by the Btritish when it was released in 1955 KISS ME DEADLY is today universally considered one of the definitive and perhaps most perfectly realized films noirs ever made. Director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides, both having a mutual contempt for right wing pulp novelist Mickey Spillane and all he stood for, nevertheless smartly capitalized on the extraordinary success of the author at the time, basing their film on Spillane's book of the same name while taking such drastic liberties with his story, characters, and ideologies that the finished product would be nearly unrecognizable to serious Spillane fans. This point seems to be forshadowed, as film noir scholar James Naremore has pointed out, in the weirdly reversed opening credits which seem to stand Mickey Spillane on his head. The movie opens with divorce detective Mike Hammer(Ralph Meeker) forced to pick up a barefoot and naked-under-a-trenchcoat Christina Baily(Chloris Leachman in her first screen role)who, as we soon find out, has escaped from a mental institution and is running down the middle of a remote California road at night. When Hammer is quickly run off the road by gangsters who torture Christina to death and nearly kill Hammer himself his interest is sparked. Hammer smells something big and the cut of something big is...well, big. He decides to give the divorce work a rest and devote himself, his adoring secretary Velda(Maxine Cooper), his Greek mechanic friend Nick(Nick Dennis), and anyone else he can get to do his dirty work for him to this new mystery. The film is rich with Cold War fear and nuclear paranoia as all the characters relentless focus of selfish greed is on "the great whatsit", the mysterious glowing box of material stolen from a nuclear testing facility. Mike Hammer's detective is totally enjoyable to watch although a distinctly unfavorable and immoral character. He whores out his secretary, Velda, without remorse to adulterous husbands to wrap up divorce cases, gets his innocent friend Nick killed by involving him in the case, is a markedly poor detective, and sadistically enjoys physically punishing those who get in his way.
KISS ME DEADLY is fundamentally wrapped up in the definitions of the film noir genre, containing all the elements--a stark opening sequence on a dark road, destructive manipulating femme fatales, low-life cheap gangsters, dark expressionistically lit night-time scenes, a vengeful (or greedy?) quest, maybe the best, and most anti-, anti-hero of the noir canon, and a dark mood of hopelessness.
Movie Review: Stylish and exciting despite some quirky elements
Summary: 5 Stars
OK, I mention quirks, so let me get right to them. One involves the way the bad guy gets it in the end, so I can't say anything about it without giving away a major plot element. But it is perhaps the oddest way any character has died since a character in Charles Dickens's BLEAK HOUSE died of spontaneous combustion. Just watch the movie; you'll see what I am talking about. The other endearing quirk is some of the "hot" technology you find in it. Without any question, this film features the first answering machine in the history of cinema. A full two decades before the breakout of the answering machine in American life, there is a reel-to-reel tape machine answering machine in Mike Hammer's apartment.Despite a hokey ending, this is a really cool film. Ralph Meeker never had the kind of career he should have had. He was charismatic, a good looking guy, and a talented actor, but had only a few roles that were plum parts. In particular, he had a very fine role as a rogue ex-calvary officer in Anthony Mann's THE NAKED SPUR, and he had a great part in Stanley Kubrick's anti-war classic PATHS OF GLORY. All things considered, his finest role was, however, playing Mike Hammer in this film.
The film has great atmosphere, a fine story (until the bizarre end), and fine acting. Stylistically, it is film noirish with a hipper edge. Mike Hammer may be a detective, but he likes to have fun as well. Philip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's novels always has a sense of the tragic element of life as well as its absurdity. His stance towards many of the events of his books is ironic. There is no sense of irony with Mike Hammer. He has a chip on his should just for the heck of it. He may lack Philip Marlowe's depth and complexity, but he probably gets more enjoyment out of life. He probably would also make a better dinner guest.
There is a great period feel to the film. It was made and set in the mid-1950s, but rarely have I seen a film that gives such a great sense of when it was made. It also features a great case. In particular, it is amazing to see Cloris Leachman play a part when she was young and very cute.
I thoroughly recommend this movie. It has a lot of energy, a lot of style, and tells a great yarn. And even though the ending is scientifically iffy, it is still a lot of fun.
Movie Review: Hammer time!
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the most necessary, and dare I say, IMPORTANT film noirs ever made. Director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides display, among many other great things, such a vast contempt for their source material (a "Mike Hammer" novel from Mickey Spillane) that it can be a bit overwhelming at times. Their hero, as portrayed by Ralph Meeker, is a rather dim-witted cannon who, when he isn't enjoying his luxurious apartment, cars, and clothes, enjoys slamming dresser-drawers on some guy's fingers. (But the guy deserves it, being a scumbag like everyone else in the film.) The movie opens with Cloris Leachman (in her first screen role) running and panting on a deserted highway, naked under her trenchcoat. From there, it just gets weirder: a violent, ugly trip through a 1950's Los Angeles that we're not used to seeing in the movies, especially old ones. But in *Kiss Me Deadly*, one feels as if one's getting a true glimpse of the city, with its petty crime, its immigrants uneasily trying to coexist, its underground bars, its debauched crime lords, its evil antiques dealers, its bathing-suited sluts. Even the ostensible comic relief -- the Greek mechanic who worships Hammer and his cars and who's bellowing "va-va-voom-POW!" about every 10 seconds -- is so calculatedly annoying that we're rather more glad than not when he comes to a bad end. For some more surrealist touches, the main "villain" (a meaningless noun for this movie) makes references to Greek mythology . . . the poetry of Christina Rossetti is prominently featured . . . Mike Hammer displays familiarity with Grand Opera . . . the Manhattan Project becomes the "Great Whatzit" of the plot . . . on it goes. The crowning touch is the maguffin itself, a heavy box that emits blinding light whenever it's opened (Quentin Tarantino gave this bit of business a nod in his own *Pulp Fiction*). As for the apocalyptic finale, it's shocking but not surprising -- after all, what in the world of *Kiss Me Deadly* is worth saving, anyway? This movie's a furious counterpoint to 1950's complacency that I can't recommend strongly enough. [The DVD has great sound, and has the restored ending, putting to rest a lot of confused debate. You can access the original theatrical ending from the menu.]Movie Review: The "Manhattan Project" never looked so good?
Summary: 5 Stars
Kiss Me Deadly is one heavily stylized, dramatic, often bruality honest, at times confusing, and often mind blowing elevator ride through one of the most often mistfied era's of American culture the 1950's! Set up as a brilliant film noir we are introduced to one stark and nerve shaking image of a bare foot young blonde in a trench-coat and nothing else on a moon-lit highway. She finally hails down Mike Hammer(Meeker in the best role of his career), and for what it's worth a tale of tracking and confussion begins when the car is stopped on the road by thugs and the blonde is murdered and Hammer is left for dead. Hammer's need to find out what happened to the blonde is underscored by his own swarmy life as a seedy private eye for hire. The whole film more than seems realisistic; as if you're traveling along with Hammer as a sort of private eye in training; you visit the thugs and smell the same foul air he smells and cringe as he gets tied down and "spread eagle" across a bed by the same thugs who murdered the blonde he tried save that night on the side of the road. But what was the blonde running from? It was the infamous "Manhattan Project"-what it is we truly never learn but for some strange reason it can set human flesh ablaze and even burn down a house but some how it is contained in a leather box! The film is loaded with "real" looking characters and for a film noir is lends the film a sense of urgency and heightens your paranoia. The film as a whole has some of the most cutting edge dialogue and direction ever put into celluloid! And as for it's reflections into life in the 50's when America was "America". A lot of film's of that age seem to forget the crimes against races, nuclear power, or the atom bomb. "Kiss Me Deadly" plays on that generations fears and insecurites and in the end it makes for a film that is still as powerful and violent as it was some fourty years ago! Oh and if this review seems a bit confusing and dis-jointing, you will too after watching this brilliant film unfold.Movie Review: Noir Means Dark, and This One Is Really Dark
Summary: 5 Stars
Most unaccountably, "Kiss Me deadly" has been long underated or neglected, like its director Robert Aldrich, whose best is probably "The Dirty Dozen" or "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane." Though "Kiss Me Deadly" does not feature the incredibly campy battle between Bette and Joan, it still gives us a dynamite opening where a frantic girl is desperately running, with her foot naked, on the deserted highway at midnight. She needs a help, she says to detective Mike Hammer, who happened to be driving there. This is the start of another long day for this LA private eye.Then follow some deaths, and threats from government agents and secret organization alike. Hammer's investigation is, as is the case with the genre, full of plot twists, but Aldrich never gets us bored with his rather laid-back direction and occassional shock materials provided for the fans. The violence (such as torture) is all suggested, not directly depicted, but the power is still there after half a century. The dialugues or situatons are all intentionally clunky, as if Aldrich is telling that the events are all happening on another planet. But his tactics work, giving the entire picture some strange feelings like another world.
We must remember that the film is made soon after the WW2, and the world is haunted with the images of nuclear age, and the conflicts between two superpowers. Clearly the weird touch of the film reinforces the uneasiness of these times found in the film, and the fears of the days are conveyed to us even now. So, nothing is fully explained; everything is suggested. You find a box, but you don't know what it is (but can guess). And the "shock" ending has not lost its power yet.
Actors are comparatively unknown except the prolific Cloris Leachman (later wins Oscar for "The Last Picture Show"), but that doesnot matter. Just watch it, and enjoy its stylish camerawor, and shocks that its audiences saw years ago. And find the possible inspiration for the "box" which Jules and Vincent had in a coffee shop in "Pulp Fiction."