Review of Kiss Me Deadly (1955) by N B — 22 Sep 2009

Ralph Meeker plays Mike Hammer, a tough Los Angeles private eye who is just slightly less brutal and corrupt than the crooks he chases. One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina (Cloris Leachman), an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for vengeance and in hopes that "something big" is behind it all, decides to pursue the case.

Ralph Meeker and Cloris Leachman.The twisting plot takes Hammer to the apartment of Lily Carver (Gaby Rodgers), a sexy, waif-like blond who is posing as the dead Christina's ex-room mate. Lily tells Hammer she has gone into hiding and asks Hammer to protect her. But she is duplicitous, and is after a mysterious box that, she believes, has contents worth a fortune.

"The great whatsit" (as Hammer's assistant Velda (Maxine Cooper) calls it) at the center of Hammer's quest is a small, mysterious valise that is hot to the touch and contains a dangerous, shining substance. It comes to represent the 1950's Cold War fear and nuclear paranoia about the atomic bomb that permiated American culture. It also suggests the mysterious glowing brief-case of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.[2].

Later,at a deserted beach house, Hammer finds Lily with her evil companion, Dr. Soberin. Velda is their hostage, tied up in a bedroom. Soberin and Lily are vying for the contents of the box. Lily shoots Soberin, believing that she can keep the mysterious contents for herself. As she slyly opens the case, it is ultimately revealed to be stolen radionuclide material, which in an apocalyptic final scene apparently reaches explosive criticality when the box ("Pandora's Box") is fully opened. Horrifying sounds are emitted from the nuclear material as Lily bursts into flames.

[edit] Alternate ending.

The original American release of the film shows Hammer and Velda escaping from the burning house at the end, running into the ocean as the words "The End" come over them on the screen. Sometime after its first release, the ending was crudely altered on the film's original negative, removing over a minute's worth of shots where Hammer and Velda escape and superimposing the words "The End" over the burning house. This implied that Hammer and Velda perished in the atomic blaze, and was often interpreted to represent the End of the World. In 1997, the original conclusion was restored. The DVD release has the correct original ending, and offers the now-discredited (but influential) truncated ending as an extra. The movie is described as "the definitive, apocalyptic, nihilistic, science-fiction film noir of all time - at the close of the classic noir period.