Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Film: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Stars: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, Wesley Addy, Maxine Cooper, Cloris Leachman, Gaby Rodgers

Director: Robert Aldrich

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Throughout the month of June, in honor of the 10th Anniversary of The Many Rantings of John, we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

One of the things that's inevitable with a series like this is that, as we go into deeper and deeper cuts for film noir, we will find that not every film is a treasure.  I always have a blast seeing a movie for the first time (particularly in theaters) because it's a new experience, and who can dislike such a joy?  But we have yet this month to run into a film noir that was really earth-shattering, one that I'd consider a peak, "best of" the genre like we did a few years ago when we last did this marathon and caught film noir classics like Ride the Pink Horse and Body Heat for the first time (reviews of both at the bottom of the page).  Today, though, we're going to get to such a film, possibly a movie that's (dare I say it) better than even those deep cut classics.  I didn't know what to expect when watching Kiss Me Deadly in sweltering, near-100 degree heat in Minnesota (I'm camped out in my basement in a form of reverse hibernation).  What I got was a movie I knew would instantly be revisited and soon adorn my own collection (oh Criterion, you wise sage, you've already got one ready for me!).

(Spoilers Ahead, and I mean it-this is a really good movie so don't just skip ahead, rent it & bookmark to read later if you haven't watched yet!) The movie opens with Mike Hammer (Meeker), driving along a nighttime route when he comes across Christina Bailey (Leachman) a beautiful woman who has escaped from a nearby asylum and is totally nude under a trench coat.  The two are run off the road, and when Mike awakens, he's in a hospital bed while Christina is dead.  Mike's girlfriend Velda (Cooper), with whom he performs penny-ante divorce cases, is there, and they decide to investigate Christina's death, getting them sucked into what initially feels like a standard-issue criminal investigation, but as the movie continues it becomes clearer that there's something alien, almost otherworldly about this investigation that could end with Mike's death.

Kiss Me Deadly is adapted from the bestselling Mickey Spillane novels, so an audience in 1955 likely would've known that Mike Hammer was going to live through this.  I, on the other hand, knew of Spillane only tangentially (I'm more inclined to an Agatha Christie mystery, though I'd be open to investigating Spillane after this movie), and the ending is petrifying to know if Mike (who is played by Meeker less as an honorable Bogart or Dick Powell detective whose goodness will shine through and more as a guy determined to get out alive, even if it means most of those around him will falter) will survive.  He does, but in a horrifying fashion.

At the end, Lily (Christina's roommate, played by Gaby Rodgers) turns out to be a double-crosser, one who has been playing the victim most of the movie but is in fact something of a sociopath, ready to kill everyone to get what she wants.  She shoots Mickey, and then opens up the mysterious box that everyone has been chasing.  It's heavily assumed to be atomic materials, though the way that it's filmed it feels less like plutonium and more like some sort of lost Ark of the Covenant, as Lily is soon burned alive in an impressive bit of visual effects for 1955.  The scene is beautifully-acted, with Rodgers nailing her part.  The whole film she's been sort of on autopilot, with us assuming she's some dumb, oblivious bystander, but she reveals slyly that part of that is real, part of it an act, and we know that she's more of a Pandora figure, intent on opening the box even if it means the destruction of the world.  I adore when films play around with genre as a surprise, and here we get that, as the closing scenes of Kiss Me Deadly read as something out of a SciFi or Horror film.

Up until this point, though, the film has so artfully shown us Mike slowly-but-steadily drowning that they don't even need to knock it out of the park on the ending (even if they did).  The cinematography is smashing (there's a great scene where we see two mobsters behind Mike but he can't, and the jump scare will genuinely give you a fright).  The film is judiciously paced, with just the right amount of fat on it, and despite having a rather complicated plot, it never feels too expositional or like we're getting too many clues.  It helps that the film is bookended by its best scenes.  The ending is stupendous, yes, but the opening is just as good.  Leachman excels at playing an unknowable woman (in the novel it appears they're more explicit as to Christina's death & why she is killed so soon, but it works better with her hanging as a coda onto the film), and in about ten minutes gives us a fully-fledged character.  It helps the film's legend that she's easily the most famous actress in the cast to modern audiences (that wouldn't be the case in 1955), so it gives something of a Janet Leigh moment that she's there and gone, but damn is she good.  Leachman & Rodgers are the standouts, but everyone's great in this though, honestly.  Meeker is delicious as Hammer, Paul Stewart excels as a mastermind who is also over his head (he just doesn't know it yet), and in a small cameo, Marian Carr plays a sexed up mob mol that basically is throwing herself at Meeker's Mike Hammer...the only problem is you want more & she never returns.  It helps that Meeker, with his piercing eyes & sandy blonde hair, is just as "smashable" as bombshell Carr-you're going to leave this movie slightly horny...in addition to completely impressed.

Previous Films in the Series: Murder My Sweet, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, The Killers, The Big Sleep, Daisy Kenyon, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, The Woman on the Beach, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, The Asphalt Jungle, Night and the City, They Live By Night, Gun Crazy, In a Lonely Place, Sweet Smell of Success, The Big Heat, The Hitch-Hiker, Pickup on South Street, House of Bamboo, The Killing, The Long Goodbye, Body Heat