Sunday, February 10, 2008

Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

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When I discovered the world of classic film, I became particularly obsessed with gangster and film noir pictures. I watched them incessantly, picking up anything with Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson sneering on the VHS or DVD cover. When I had run through those, I read about film noir and immediately picked up any film of note, loving every last morsel of tough dialogue and shadowy atmosphere. However, there are a few films I've missed along the way and one of the biggest, until recently, is the generally revered Kiss Me Deadly.

Based on the novel by Mickey Spillane and the fourth film by the heralded genre director Robert Aldrich, Kiss Me Deadly occupies a somewhat dated spot in film noir history. To be certain, film noir in general, with its colorful language and aesthetic boundaries dates itself, but the best films transcend those trappings to become timeless thrillers or existential exercises. Unfortunately, when the plot hinges on a particular moment in world history as Kiss Me Deadly does, the results are awkward when watching them over fifty years later.

The film definitely starts off with an effective bang. A woman comes running out of the brush near the side of a highway wearing nothing but a trench coat and screaming for someone to stop. A handsome man, with a convertible and look that says he's seen it all before, picks her up. Even though a news bulletin gives her away as a wanted woman, the man plays it cool, guiding her through a police stop and listening to her story. She is gripped by fear, worrying that someone is out to get her - and she's right. She doesn't get very far in telling her tale when the car is run off the road and she's killed. Fade to a clever reverse credit scroll.

The man in the car is private eye Mike Hammer and of course, he feels duty bound to find out who killed the mystery woman and why. Thus begins a Hammer's journey through the nameless city's seamy underbelly, as he interviews a variety of low lives to unravel this case. Naturally, the police tell him to back off as do an assorted array of baddies, but Hammer keeps his jaw squared and his eyes steely.

Behind the camera, Aldrich shows a keen eye. He keeps the viewer off balance by shooting from high up, placing the camera in corners, accenting the depth of the hallways and staircases, while throwing ominous shadows all over the place. But none of it is over the top as Aldrich maintains a steady atmosphere without it becoming a crutch. Additionally, the film benefits from some nice on location shooting around Los Angeles, adding to the heat infused tension as the film moves forward.

Unfortunately, at the midpoint of the film it is revealed that a box of nuclear material is at the center of the growing body count of brooding bad guys. What would have been a legitimate scare near the beginning of the Cold War becomes a device that throws believability right out the window. Why is the government not involved if the police are already aware of what is going on? Are we to believe that nuclear material can be stored in a box in a gym locker and is only dangerous when opened? From here the film becomes tiresome and hysterical, right up to it's finale. The 1955 theatrical release cuts about one minute from the ending, leaving things ambiguous while suggesting that every character we've come to know over the past hour and a half ends up dead. The restored ending, featured on the MGM DVD, brings back the missing sixty seconds and offers up something more conventional if just as unsatisfying.

Kiss Me Deadly is ably directed, with a strong cast and a proper assortment of eccentric locals and shifty characters. But when viewed fifty years later, it simply doesn't hold up.

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