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Kiss Me Deadly - 1955
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Written by A.I. Bezzerides
Based on the novel "Kiss Me, Deadly" by Mickey Spillane
Featuring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart & Juano Hernandez
Va va voom! Pow! Wow! It's not hard to speak in mechanic Nick's (Nick Dennis) vernacular when talking about Kiss Me Deadly - one hell of a gritty, dark, nasty film noir masterpiece directed by Robert Aldrich and twisted into shape using Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novel. It's a surprise that films like this could exist at all in 1950s America - not that it wasn't considered as a "number one menace to American youth" from some quarters. I reckon some of it might have flown directly over the heads of most kids - it takes a lot of innuendo, suggestion and playful filmmaking to get this much sex and violence past the Production Code Office. But make no mistake - this film is violence, sex and death without let-up for over 100 minutes. Even before the opening credits start to roll a mostly-naked young woman stops Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), driving a 1951 Jaguar XK120 roadster, and uses her allure to desperately entice him into giving her a lift.
The woman is Christina Bailey (Cloris Leachman) - and on the run from dangerous people. Before Mike can even get her from point A to point B their car is stopped and the two are abducted, with Christina tortured and murdered before an unconscious Mike is tipped over a cliff and left to die. Luckily he doesn't, but from that moment on he's trying to link up anyone connected with Christina to find out what was valuable enough to necessitate such treatment. With the help of his co-worker and lover Velda Wakeman (Maxine Cooper) he uncovers a list of names which either feature people that have since been murdered, or those doing the killing - all after a "whatsit", the location of which has been cryptically hinted at by Christina's exhortation to Mike : "Remember me..." If Mike does end up finding what has been causing all of this fuss, he might very well wish that he'd left well enough alone...
Talk about anti-heroes. Mike Hammer is a private investigator, but his work ethic sure is interesting. He entices wives to cheat on husbands, and uses Velda to entice the husbands - playing each side against the other with him the ultimate winner finance-wise. The cops yuck it up when questioning him - but this is a seriously twisted person to be a protagonist. When on the hunt for the "whatsit" at the center of this story, he breaks valuables, uses violence, seduces, pays off, and does whatever is necessary to get him the information he needs. A cornoner has his hand crushed. A storage proprieter feels the wrath of his fists. An opera singer sees his valuable record smashed. All because Mike can smell a big pay-off when he gets his hands on whatever it is everyone is killing and dying for. In the meantime allies are killed and kidnapped as consequences of his obsessive quest.
Kiss Me Deadly does everything noir with accomplished confidence and style - but always with an added bad attitude. Famed cinematographer Ernest Laszlo deliniates shadows sharply, and goes to town with them in nearly every scene - as expected. Frank De Vol's music pounds with dramatic flair. The opening credits are accompanied by the sexualized gasping of Christina Bailey, and scroll from bottom to top as if the film were being purposely defiant. There's something sleazy about the feel of it, and before long we're hearing Christina's cries of pain as she's tortured, naked, upon a table as an unconscious Hammer lolls in the foreground. Sound is being used as a substitute for visuals because Aldrich and co appear to have realised that the Production Code doesn't really come down as hard on what we can hear as long as we can't see it.
In it's conclusion this film is as nasty as it's been throughout - everything burns - but overall there's a wonderfully subverse quality that goes against the grain of Mickey Spillane's trashy writing at the time. The violent vigilante at the center of all of this is in no way justified, excused or redeemed. His greed and overconfidence instead perverts the course of justice, and the power at the center of the story is unleashed in it's horrifying fury. In Samuel Fuller's 1953 Cold War spy film noir film Pickup on South Street the crimes of the anti-hero are excused and condoned in the name of fighting communism. In Kiss Me Deadly Spillane's anti-communist Hammer has been transformed by having more selfish motives - lest the hysteria of the time make all of the horror seemingly in order. None of it is - the violence and criminal activity reeks, just as it should do.
Watching all of the bad activity in this - it's so much fun. Every edge is razor sharp, and every comment dripping with nasty innuendo, threat, lust and a hardness only the most corrupt can summon from their minds. The power everyone fights for is almost as extreme as that the Ark of the Covenant has in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is what it reminds me of when finally found - explaining why people are fighting and dying for it. A timely reminder that this was the beginning of the atomic age. We side with the anti-hero for the simple reason that we want to see it already - sharing in that grim kind of curiosity. Kiss Me Deadly is bad - in the Michael Jackson use of the terminology. So bad. As bad as the end result of the power at the film's center finally unleashed. As bad as the reasons for wanting to harness that power and own it - to steal it by any means necessary. Nothing good could ever come from that, and what better lesson could be taught to American youth?
Kiss Me Deadly - 1955
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Written by A.I. Bezzerides
Based on the novel "Kiss Me, Deadly" by Mickey Spillane
Featuring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart & Juano Hernandez
Va va voom! Pow! Wow! It's not hard to speak in mechanic Nick's (Nick Dennis) vernacular when talking about Kiss Me Deadly - one hell of a gritty, dark, nasty film noir masterpiece directed by Robert Aldrich and twisted into shape using Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novel. It's a surprise that films like this could exist at all in 1950s America - not that it wasn't considered as a "number one menace to American youth" from some quarters. I reckon some of it might have flown directly over the heads of most kids - it takes a lot of innuendo, suggestion and playful filmmaking to get this much sex and violence past the Production Code Office. But make no mistake - this film is violence, sex and death without let-up for over 100 minutes. Even before the opening credits start to roll a mostly-naked young woman stops Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), driving a 1951 Jaguar XK120 roadster, and uses her allure to desperately entice him into giving her a lift.
The woman is Christina Bailey (Cloris Leachman) - and on the run from dangerous people. Before Mike can even get her from point A to point B their car is stopped and the two are abducted, with Christina tortured and murdered before an unconscious Mike is tipped over a cliff and left to die. Luckily he doesn't, but from that moment on he's trying to link up anyone connected with Christina to find out what was valuable enough to necessitate such treatment. With the help of his co-worker and lover Velda Wakeman (Maxine Cooper) he uncovers a list of names which either feature people that have since been murdered, or those doing the killing - all after a "whatsit", the location of which has been cryptically hinted at by Christina's exhortation to Mike : "Remember me..." If Mike does end up finding what has been causing all of this fuss, he might very well wish that he'd left well enough alone...
Talk about anti-heroes. Mike Hammer is a private investigator, but his work ethic sure is interesting. He entices wives to cheat on husbands, and uses Velda to entice the husbands - playing each side against the other with him the ultimate winner finance-wise. The cops yuck it up when questioning him - but this is a seriously twisted person to be a protagonist. When on the hunt for the "whatsit" at the center of this story, he breaks valuables, uses violence, seduces, pays off, and does whatever is necessary to get him the information he needs. A cornoner has his hand crushed. A storage proprieter feels the wrath of his fists. An opera singer sees his valuable record smashed. All because Mike can smell a big pay-off when he gets his hands on whatever it is everyone is killing and dying for. In the meantime allies are killed and kidnapped as consequences of his obsessive quest.
Kiss Me Deadly does everything noir with accomplished confidence and style - but always with an added bad attitude. Famed cinematographer Ernest Laszlo deliniates shadows sharply, and goes to town with them in nearly every scene - as expected. Frank De Vol's music pounds with dramatic flair. The opening credits are accompanied by the sexualized gasping of Christina Bailey, and scroll from bottom to top as if the film were being purposely defiant. There's something sleazy about the feel of it, and before long we're hearing Christina's cries of pain as she's tortured, naked, upon a table as an unconscious Hammer lolls in the foreground. Sound is being used as a substitute for visuals because Aldrich and co appear to have realised that the Production Code doesn't really come down as hard on what we can hear as long as we can't see it.
In it's conclusion this film is as nasty as it's been throughout - everything burns - but overall there's a wonderfully subverse quality that goes against the grain of Mickey Spillane's trashy writing at the time. The violent vigilante at the center of all of this is in no way justified, excused or redeemed. His greed and overconfidence instead perverts the course of justice, and the power at the center of the story is unleashed in it's horrifying fury. In Samuel Fuller's 1953 Cold War spy film noir film Pickup on South Street the crimes of the anti-hero are excused and condoned in the name of fighting communism. In Kiss Me Deadly Spillane's anti-communist Hammer has been transformed by having more selfish motives - lest the hysteria of the time make all of the horror seemingly in order. None of it is - the violence and criminal activity reeks, just as it should do.
Watching all of the bad activity in this - it's so much fun. Every edge is razor sharp, and every comment dripping with nasty innuendo, threat, lust and a hardness only the most corrupt can summon from their minds. The power everyone fights for is almost as extreme as that the Ark of the Covenant has in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is what it reminds me of when finally found - explaining why people are fighting and dying for it. A timely reminder that this was the beginning of the atomic age. We side with the anti-hero for the simple reason that we want to see it already - sharing in that grim kind of curiosity. Kiss Me Deadly is bad - in the Michael Jackson use of the terminology. So bad. As bad as the end result of the power at the film's center finally unleashed. As bad as the reasons for wanting to harness that power and own it - to steal it by any means necessary. Nothing good could ever come from that, and what better lesson could be taught to American youth?