Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

[HosManHatter]

A cinemaphile friend of mine told me about this little Film Noir jewel from 1955 and now I`m telling youse guys,see?? *grabbing nearest TFLer by the lapels and pulling him roughly to his feet* It`s a real sweet deal of a movie,see? All about this hardboilded,no nonsense private dick named Mike Hammer,see? and the crazy dame he gets wrapped up in,you see??

This is probably one of the coolest and moodiest detective and/or film noir movies I`ve had the pleasure of waching.Ralph Meeker plays the lead role of Private Eye Mike Hammer(from the Mickey Spillane novels). No spoilers here,folks. Ok....this 50`s film uses a certain prop and effect seen later in an 80`s cult classic flick.

Heck! It`s worth watching just to see the coolest old school telephone answering machine Mike Hammer has in his pad! Check it! A wall-mounted reel to reel phone answering machine complete with tinny female voice.

Loved this movie!

HMH

p.s. the opening title credits are run backwards i.e. rising from the bottom of the screen up to the top of the screen.Clever and cool.

 

[dr greg]

thoughts

I studied this film years ago:

The character of Mike Hammer in this film is somewhat removed from Spillane’s vision. The totally amoral and vicious divorce consultant is not quite the seeker of justice we come to expect in detective noir. His quest (the lonely knight, seeker of truth) is based more on the bottom line than any sense of retribution. His curious asexuality is also different from other filmic depictions of Hammer. I seem to recall him being a rather more rakish figure in “My Gun is Quick”. What the motivation is for this approach by Aldrich escapes my reading of the film. Perhaps Hammer is too scared of any commitment to anything but himself, or is basically insecure and fears the influence of femininity in his struggle for existence in a tough world?
The Cold War was obviously a serious undercurrent in this story, and is a feature surprisingly not often found in classic detective noir, “Pickup on South St” being the only other one of my experience, except of course for those “I was a Communist for the FBI” yarns which utilised some filmic conventions of noir but are generally not accepted as part of the canon. The possibility that Aldrich’s message may have been to draw a comparison between the idealised systems by having the unnamed bad-guys (obviously foreign) as being totally ruthless and violent, and the “hero” exactly the same. This asks the question: which is the more worthy of our identification? Again, the message may have been that only morally vacuous thugs are able to combat these villains on their own level. “He who must fight monsters should take care he doesn’t become one” is an old quote. And perhaps this illustrates the concept.
It is important to note that Hammer is outside the law, and this makes us feel that the law is inadequate to the task, and the lone hero is the only answer. I wonder how the character Aldrich has constructed here would have functioned in a screenplay that involved a conventional noir narrative and didn’t stray into SF and Psychodrama. I did read a Queer perspective that proposed the character Meeker portrayed was homosexual and this explained his cold attitude to the women as well as the scene where he is attacked by the guy at 2 in the morning and is able to use that violence as an outlet for his inability to admit his own feelings to himself!! Dunno bout that, but you do have to wonder about a bloke who lives this violent life on the edge not taking advantage of any piece of smooey that goes by as a bit of stress relief. All sorts of readings of this element of the text are possible: the image of woman as Delilah may perhaps be a subliminal reading: the hero won’t complete the task if weakened/castrated by woman. There is also a possible reading of this film from a mythic point of view in relation to mediaeval romance and Grail Quest legends, but I think that may only illustrate the universality of themes in oppositional drama.
This is a masterpiece of filmmaking from a technical point of view, and was done in three weeks, which is a credit to the discipline of the cast and crew.
Like all good films you read what you want into it, and perhaps the maker hardly knew himself.

 

[HosManHatter]

What a wonderfully concise and thought provoking mini-essay on KISS ME DEADLY, dr greg. Were you a film or drama major;have you worked in some aspect of "the industry" or just another afficinado of classic cinema?--albeit a highly knowledgable one. I`m not being sarcastic or patronizing,dr greg.Far from it. Your insights and observations about this film and the many subtexts and veiled hints and/or references with regards to psychology,aberrant behavior,history,culture,"old fashioned" values,norms and mores...even touching on ethics re: right and wrong/law vs. vigilantism ...etc.

This is how I`ve learned to appreciate and understand the art of film making,the classics and whythey are classics....by talking to experts on the subject,by reading what the pundits and historians have said about those great pieces of cinema and by trying to look at all aspects of a given scene or shot as the director would i.e. how camera angles,lighting,cut shots,editing...even sound and musical score are manipulated by a director to achieve a certain feeling,mood or emotion. It really is an art and I only understand the basics (self-made ametuer film buff that I am).

Thanks for making me think,doc!
Sorry for the long winded post.

HMH

 

[Doc Average]

Va Va Voom! Pretty POW!

Great write up Dr Greg.

I have Kiss Me Deadly on DVD, and by coincidence, I was watching it late last night while enjoying a few glasses of Heaven Hill bourbon.

It's one of my favourite noirs. The use of location in it really gives it a great atmosphere. It's great to see mid 50s LA in the raw, so to speak! I love it when noir gets out of the studio and into the streets. Other favourites with a similar feel are Sunset Boulevard, the original D.O.A, Night and the City, The Killing, Killers Kiss and Touch of Evil. The latter, along with Kiss Me Deadly, are in my opinion, the two sleaziest noirs in the canon (a good thing in my book! ).

Plus a cameo from Jack Elam, and assault and battery (buttery?) with a handful of deadly popcorn! What's not to love?!

 

[Wally_Hood]

A cinemaphile friend of mine told me about this little Film Noir jewel from 1955 and now I`m telling youse guys,see?? *grabbing nearest TFLer by the lapels and pulling him roughly to his feet* It`s a real sweet deal of a movie,see? All about this hardboilded,no nonsense private dick named Mike Hammer,see? and the crazy dame he gets wrapped up in,you see??

This is probably one of the coolest and moodiest detective and/or film noir movies I`ve had the pleasure of waching.Ralph Meeker plays the lead role of Private Eye Mike Hammer(from the Mickey Spillane novels). No spoilers here,folks. Ok....this 50`s film uses a certain prop and effect seen later in an 80`s cult classic flick.

Heck! It`s worth watching just to see the coolest old school telephone answering machine Mike Hammer has in his pad! Check it! A wall-mounted reel to reel phone answering machine complete with tinny female voice.

Loved this movie!

HMH

p.s. the opening title credits are run backwards i.e. rising from the bottom of the screen up to the top of the screen.Clever and cool.

So do the opening credits of THX 1138

 

[HosManHatter]

You are right,Wally_Hood. I`d completely forgotten about that one. I`m due to re-watch THX 1138 again anyhow.

Doc Average, then it wasn`t just me who loved the martial popcorn action? Cool! A very young and slender Jack Elam ...back when they still weren`t quite sure `bout Jack`s whole occular thingy.

Gentlemen,shall we retire to the Film Noir Appreciation Thread for congac and fine cigars?

TOUCH OF EVIL shows us incredible technical skill with those incredibly lengthy tracking camera shots.Orson Welles directed ...? Or Hitchcock? Guess what I`ll be watching this weekend?

HMH

 

[dr greg]

bit of both

I have always been an aficianado of film noir since I was a small kid watching late night B/W TV with my father. About 10 years ago I did a degree in digital media, and I took film history as a unit purely because I knew as much about it as the lecturer, and could breeze it in..he of course was overjoyed to have a mature student who could actually converse about the subject as opposed to the insolent gum-chewing 'whateverrrrr's' who made up the rest of the class.
I have done some film acting in minor roles, and of course write noir fiction, so I don't wear that hat for nothin!!
Glad you enjoyed it, it took a while to find in the dark recesses of my hard drive.

 

[Wally_Hood]

You are right,Wally_Hood. I`d completely forgotten about that one. I`m due to re-watch THX 1138 again anyhow.

Doc Average, then it wasn`t just me who loved the martial popcorn action? Cool! A very young and slender Jack Elam ...back when they still weren`t quite sure `bout Jack`s whole occular thingy.

Gentlemen,shall we retire to the Film Noir Appreciation Thread for congac and fine cigars?

TOUCH OF EVIL shows us incredible technical skill with those incredibly lengthy tracking camera shots.Orson Welles directed ...? Or Hitchcock? Guess what I`ll be watching this weekend?

HMH

Orson Welles directed, wrote the screenplay, and starred. The opening tracking shot is justifiably one of the greatest scenes in cinema history.

Interestingly (at least to me, who really should get professional help with my film noir dependency), there are some film historians and critics who identify Touch of Evil as the last true noir; we wait until the neo-noir movement in the eighties for more films that consciously conform to noir. (Not looking to start a heated discussion, by the way...)