"Kiss Me Deadly" was one of writer, Mickey Spillane's favorite movie adaptations from his hard-boiled detective pulp novels and Ralph Meeker was his favorite, Mike Hammer. That says a lot about this film noir movie.
A naked trenchcoated hitchhiker (played by a very young Cloris Leachman) is picked up by Mike and the two are subsequently kidnapped, tortured, and driven over a cliff. Mike Hammer, who's normally a self-centered, sleazy, detective is driven to find the killers and to extract revenge.
Most 1950s movies didn't deal with a sleazy underworld like this, or had the type of anti-hero that Ralph Meeker played. The fact that they were able to make a movie like "Kiss Me Deadly" seven years before the James Bond franchise was very surprising.
Some of the things I liked about this movie, besides the fast cars, and fast women, was the world's first telephone answering machine. :-D The mystery suitcase was the perfect MacGuffin that has since been borrowed by Quentin Tarantino in his movie, "Pulp Fiction" (1994). You could tell that Spillane was no rocket scientist, and how little we knew about radio active material.
Still, it's a good enough movie to recommend to check it out.
"kiss me deadly" is not the conventional noir which populates in 1940s with detective hero scenarios, and contrarily our opportunistic protagonist could be the meanest dubious anti-hero who sticks to his chauvinist womanizing lifestyle without redeeming mercy. and the catastrophe at last is the metaphoric phobia for the atomic age when chemical explosion is the deadliest phemonal crisis then. the femme fatale is ruthlessly trigger-happy pandora who unravel the lethal box of doom. the world surrounded within "kiss me deadly" is not entirely realistic decadence for the crimes of passion but a crooked labyrinth where man's avarice dominates, and the cynicism of such macabre is timelessly contemporary.
the profile of our male protagonist is cleverly anchored within the dialogues at the opening sequence while a female asylum inmate hitchhikes his two-seat chic roadster: "a self-indulgent male who cares nothing but his clothes, his car, who only takes but never gives in a relationship."....then the horrid murder under the disguise of car wreck follows after a brutal kidnap. so this self-indulgent male happens to be a bedroom dick, who philanders his own girlfriend to profit from divorce cases, is eager to investigate the truth of the matter on his own, NOT for the sake of performing justice but to gain an angle of earning quick cashes. the process of mayhem is highly practiced within the procedue of obtaining what he yearns to know. so this self-obessed man intimates everyone involed and embraces to kiss every woman to attain his purposes. and that includes whoring his own sappy girlfriend AGAIN. BUT his effortless greed is futile since what he's after turns out to be an appartus of apolytic condemnation.
this is an universe running amok with its sinister overpower, and its lack of heroic savior is modern syptom of aloof amorality which detonates the explosion of pandora's box to ruminate man's own misdemeanors. ralph meeker's self-assumptious chauvinist ends up being a dope who takes the bullet of punishment from a guiling female con, so he retreats into his maternal girlfriend's bossom to do away with the forseeing descent of pandora's evil venom...could he be immue?
needless to say, the illuminator is ralph meeker's devilish womanizer as well as gaby rodger who emanates a modern sense of diabolism which rivals lena olin in "romeo is bleeding"...there's not much realism in "kiss me deadly" but an intriguing concept expressed in an utterly self-centered perspective.
Victime d'une tentative de meurtre après avoir embarqué une jeune femme sur le bord de la route, un détective privé mène sa propre enquête pour retracer ses bourreaux et découvre qu'ils sont en fait à la recherche d'un mystérieux objet. Un film noir bien tourné, rempli de rebondissements cocasses et de scènes qui font sourire.
Aldrich semble s'amuser avec les clichés du genre tout en le maîtrisant parfaitement. Son héros est à toute épreuve: fort, viril, séduisant les femmes sans se soucier d'elles et toujours sur une nouvelle piste. Le ton du film est constamment sur la mince ligne entre le sérieux et l'humour pince-sans-rire. On y trouve même une subtile touche de fantastique. Un long métrage très divertissant à l'esthétique soignée.
Ralph Meeker stars as Mike Hammer, a hard drinkin', hard lovin' private detective hot on the trail of a murderer. He survives being beaten, drugged, shot and even pushed off a cliff in an automobile in this conventional crime thriller with a very unconventional ending. The cast list reads like a virtual "who's who" of character actors with names like Cloris Leachman, Albert Dekker, Jack Elam, Percy Helton and Strother Martin. But, even with this bevy of future stars surrounding him, it's Meeker that draws your attention. This is a role he was born to play and a film you shouldn't miss!
*Note: Kiss Me Deadly currently holds the record for the largest answering machine ever caught on film. :)
Uno de los temas por excelencia del cine serie B y de muchos film-noir durante la postguerra, fue la paranoia por la energía nuclear y sus terribles consecuencias para la humanidad. En Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Robert Aldrich introdujo este tema sin que fuera del todo constante en la trama, ni lo que movía a su personaje principal, Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), un poco escrupuloso y mujeriego detective. Hasta su gran vuelta de tuerca final, se revelaba la existencia de una ?sustancia peligrosa? guardada en una maleta.
La película se puede ver como un antecedente de teleseries posteriores como The Twilight Zone, tan sólo en el intrigante inicio, con una bella mujer (Cloris Leachman) corriendo asustada en la noche por la carretera, mientras vemos unos créditos iniciales que corren en sentido inverso y con la canción ?Rather the Blues? de fondo, interpretada por Nat King Cole.
De los mejores film-noir de los 1950, Kiss Me Deadly está basada en una novela de Mickey Spillane, adaptada por el guionista A.I. Bezzerides y magníficamente fotografiada por Ernest Laszlo. El guión tenía uno de sus mayores atractivos en la maleta que contenía un fascinante y misterioso elemento radiactivo, y cada vez que alguien la abría despedía sus efectos mortales en la forma de una deslumbrante luz al desafortunado curioso. ¿Quentin Tarantino se habrá inspirado en esta maleta para la que aparecía en Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction y Kill Bill 2? Apuesto que sí. Más en http://pantallanueve.blogspot.com
One of the greatest detective thrillers i have ever seen. A must watch if you like film-noir. Can't believe this was made in 1955. Very stylish and classy movie. Strongly recommended to everyone...
Ralph Meeker, in the role of his life, plays the violent and fireproof Mike Hammer in a supremely enjoyable McCarthy-era/nuclear holocaust paranoid Noir. full of great moments like the opening scene and an epilogue that makes it feel like a genuine horror film.
An excellent noir that does an amazing job of setting an atmosphere of unease. The opening credits are an amazing piece of cinema, and it's one of several scenes that has a perfectly conveyed eeriness about it. Beautifully directed and acted.
Aldrich was a fantastic director and this classic has his fingerprints all over it. This movie was way ahead of it's time and if you ever wondered where Tarantino got the idea for the glowing suitcase. Look no further.
ugh, this was a huge disappointment, and not because i was anticipating it but because of how bad it was. i don't know how this can be regarded as a good film let alone a classic by anyone. do yourself a favour, avoid this unless you're a hardcore and i mean hardcore Tarantino fan and go watch "Double Indemnity" for a truly great film noir.
Unsettling and extremely cold noir. Kiss Me Deadly's got a very slick look to it, but it doesn't come at you with an attractive or even engaging or charismatic cast. Ralph Meeker's kind of a dopey (maybe that's the nature of Hammer--I don't know) Mike Hammer who makes all the wrong choices as he turns everything around him to shit. Then there's the case of his doormat assistant you can't bring yourself to feel sorry for. The ending was kind of cool but it was a case of too little too late. If you're on a total film noir bender it's a great place to turn and it might even be considered essential viewing as far as the genre's concerned, but by no means typical. I just wasn't blown away by it. Great opening (including a young Cloris Leachman) even if the titles were bad though.
I'm rating the original cut. The extra minute or so that they put in for "clarification" makes everything super lame and ridiculously obvious. But yeah, great old noir.
Slow, silly, stupid - this movie is so lame it makes me yawn just to think of it. After one hour's watch I couldn't bear to waste any further lifetime on this tele-junk.
A great weird hybrid of film noir and cold war paranoia.Not a linear film by all means,it is nightmarish and symbolic, which will surprise everyone expecting a typical noir film. A big influence on Pulp fiction(the 'MacGuffin' suitcase) and Lost Highway(the shots of the highway,the garage and the burning house by the beach at the highly disturbing finale)
Incredibly slick noir, with dialog that'll leave you impaled on the dark highway it begins on. Ralph Meeker is a perfect Mike Hammer, dripping with enough sleaze and cold sentiment to freeze over hell. Quite possibly the birth of the cool.
I can't get enough noir! This is the meanest one I've ever seen. The hero is a violent, leering perv. The mysterious, glowing suitcase that screams when you open it up?Pulp Fiction totally ripped it off (except this suitcase can kill people). Beginning credits are unforgettable. Insane and over the top; the ending is particularly crazy.
This impeccably shot film absolutely oozes with style, and its innovative camerawork isn't its only defining feature. Aldrich directs his violent, absorbing mystery story with precision and focus, and the performances are solid all around. Some of the best black-and-white cinematography I have ever seen.
Christina Bailey: Get me to that bus stop and forget you ever saw me. If we don't make it to the bus stop... Mike Hammer: We will. Christina Bailey: If we don't, remember me.
This is an interesting noir with an asshole of a main protagonist. He breaks all kinds of rules to get what he wants.
The plot revolves around a woman's death leading to an investigation by the main character Hammer, to see what the big scheme of things is.
What makes this movie worthwhile is three thingsl:
The opening sequence is particularly good at getting things moving.
A while into the movie has one of the biggest "what the fuck" moments I have ever seen.
And the ending is particularly crazy, making things all worth it.
Dr. G.E. Soberin: Listen to me, as if I were Cerberus barking with all his heads at the gates of hell. I will tell you where to take it, but don't... don't open the box!
Amazingly violent and nihilistic thriller. I read about it and persuaded the Librarian in charge of order videos to get a copy, and Kiss Me Deadly lived up to the hype.
Surprisingly a really good film noir - I wasnt expecting to what I was about to see. I cant really explain it in a few words so just check it out if you like old films. Deffo worth a look.
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