Review of Kiss Me Deadly (1955) by John S — 08 May 2011

Throughout this year thus far, I have watched many films delving into a great deal of genres. One of the most prominent of these is the film-noir genre; so far, I have watched eight of IMDb's top 50 films of this type. Though my favorite of these eight remains to be Sunset Blvd., I have just recently watched a film which I can safely say is one of the most unusual noirs I have seen thus far. This film is, unsurprisingly, Kiss Me Deadly.

Now, when I say it is unusual, I do not mean that the plot alone is completely, outstandly different from other such films. In fact, this is quite the contrary; the plot is exactly what we could expect from every other film-noir. Private detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), while driving down a road one night, comes across a young woman named Christina (Cloris Leachman), who has just escaped a mental institution. However, they are intruded by a gang of thugs, who kill Christina, knock Mike unconscious, and throw Mike's car off a cliff with both of their bodies inside. Mike survives the crash, and is, from that point on, bent on seeking vengeance and solving the case. He seeks help from his secretary/lover Velda (Maxine Cooper). Eventually, the plot becomes fixated on a mysterious box, containing a glowing, hazardous substance which is key to the mystery.

This is one of the later film-noirs, as the genre peaked in the 1940's. Though this plot, as I have just explained, seems like something that could be expected from the genre, the way it is incorporated and shown to us is so unexplainably dark and surreal. The opening scene alone is seedy, beginning with a young woman, obviously a lunatic, who is running down a dark street, wearing nothing but a trenchcoat. Even the opening credits, which play almost immediately after, are different: they scroll from the bottom of the screen, to the top.

Another thing that sets this apart from other noirs is just the plain brutality of it. Though this film is not so much gory and bloody, the violence is still there. Though it is mostly implied and never explicitly shown, it makes it even more bizarre. At the beginning scene, we see Christina being tortured to death, though all we can see are her legs dangling off the ground, and all we can hear are her blood-curdling screams. We'll never know exactly what they did to her, but our imaginations say otherwise. Though I read somewhere that they had taken a pair of pliers to her genitals. If this is true, then wow. Just wow.

Another thing that sets this film apart is the mise-en-scène. Like most noirs, this one is filmed in black and white. The shadows are ominous, and the overall feel of the film is eerie and mistrusting. However, something about the way the film looks gives it that extra push into surrealism, though I can never put my finger onto what it is exactly. Throughout the film, there are overwhelming implications of sexuality, violence, deceit, and absurdity. The camera angles and placement are uneven a great deal of the time, and at a certain point, one of the characters begins belting out an opera piece. The lingering effects of the country's Cold War A-bomb fears are also noticeable in the film. For this reason, this film has occasionally been dubbed an "apocalyptic film-noir" - quite possibly the only one of this genre. As I was saying before, this film is unlike any other of the film-noir genre.

Although these qualities cannot save the slow-moving plot, they also make the viewing experience even more remarkable. Where most film-noirs are cynical, this one is psychological. It is bizarre, mistrusting, and, overall, quite well-done. We could definitely see how a crime film such as this one could influence a great deal of soon-to-be legendary filmmakers, like Scorsese and Tarantino. To be quite honest, the ending scene makes the entire film completely worthwhile - though I'm not about to give anything away! All I have to say is watch this film. Though it was released after the prime of Hollywood noir, it definitely is one of the most well-made, at least from what I have seen.