Review of Kiss Me Deadly (1955) by Kris W — 30 Dec 2007

Aldrich ruthlessly deconstructs Mickey Spillane's especially misogynist brand of hardboiled fiction and tries mightily to allegorize the anxieties of the decade. The effort to render up the atomic bomb in mythic terms teeters a bit in a film that can't support such weighty -- or pretentious -- tropes, but Meeker's brutal dullard and Gaby Rogers (who?) provide remarkable, stylized performances.