Saturday Night Cinema: Kiss Of Death (1947)

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Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema is the vicious and still shocking  film noir crime drama, Kiss of Death. A taut thriller that is unusually attuned to its lowlife characters. Based in part on a true story, Kiss of Death is given a veneer of
reality by being filmed on location in New York, per the insistence of
director Henry Hathaway. This is the film in which
Widmark's character gigglingly pushes a wheelchair-bound old lady down a
flight of stairs. Reviewer James Agee said it best: "You feel that
murder is the kindest thing he is capable of". The film made Widmark a
star–and also convinced him to start lobbying immediately for good-guy
roles so that he wouldn't be typecast as maniacal killers for life.

Brian Donlevy, and Coleen Gray.

What really sets this noir apart…is a combination of Hathaway's
deliberate craftsmanship and the small crackerjack ensemble led by
Mature and Widmark

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Victor Mature is terrific in his role as Nick Bianco. He balances a believable hood with a genuine guy who is motivated by his
kids to straighten up from his crooked ways.

As our film begins a narrator informs us over the opening shots of a
bustling Manhattan that, “Christmas eve in New York a happy time for
some people; the lucky ones. Last minute shopping, presents for the
kids, hurry home to light the tree and fill the stockings… for the lucky
ones. Others aren’t so lucky.” Here we are introduced to Nick Bianco (Victor Mature)
a former jail-bird, trying to fly the straight and narrow. After a year
of his prison record impeding his efforts to get a legit job, we see
Nick and a few cohorts enter a jeweler’s office and rob them because,
“this is how Nick goes Christmas shopping for his kids.”

Richard Widmark's bravura debut as snickering gangster Tommy Udo,
and particularly his infamous encounter with an old woman in a wheelchair,
enjoys such pop cachet that the movie itself has been somewhat underrated.
Mores the pity. Henry Hathaway's third entry in 20th Century Fox's
series of post WWII thrillers is just about the best of the bunch.
These films incorporated the semi-documentary techniques and wondrously

 

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poetcomic1
poetcomic1
10 years ago

Funny that Widmark’s first big role is remembered for pushing a handicapped person from a high place. In PANIC IN THE STREETS, Widmark played the good guy role and Jack Palance made HIS evil debut….throwing a sick man from a high landing. I wonder if Widmark gave him some pointers – nothing says ‘evil’ like throwing the disabled from high places.

livingengine
livingengine
10 years ago

Ben Hecht –
“He became an active Zionist shortly before the Holocaust began in Germany, and as a result wrote articles and plays about the plight of European Jews, such as, We Will Never Die in 1943 and A Flag is Born in 1946.
Of his seventy to ninety screenplays, he wrote many anonymously to avoid the British boycott of his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The boycott was a response to Hecht’s active support of paramilitary action against British forces in Palestine and sabotaging British property there, during which time a supply ship to Palestine was named the S. S. Ben Hecht.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hecht

Marie C
Marie C
10 years ago

Great movie….thanks for posting it…

chilipalmer
chilipalmer
10 years ago

Many thanks for this gem that is rarely seen.

Robert Hickey
Robert Hickey
10 years ago

Pamela,
Were you ever a film reviewer/critic? Your reviews are so well done! Now please don’t tell me this *was* a professional review and embarrass me! 🙂 Just lie to me if it was!!!

scrubjay
scrubjay
10 years ago

@poetcomic1: Islamist are the experts on evil. Four hijackers from the Palestine Liberation Front took control of the Achille Lauro on October 7, 1985, singled out Leon Klinghoffer, a Jew, for murder, shooting him in the forehead and chest as he sat in his wheelchair. They then forced the ship’s barber and a waiter to throw his body and wheelchair overboard. Marilyn Klinghoffer, who did not witness the shooting, was told by the hijackers that he had been moved to the infirmary.

Fred
Fred
10 years ago

Great movie. They cannot make great movies anymore. Recently my wife took out 6 recent movies made my Hollywood and she watched about 10 minutes of each movie and could not watch the rest of the movie. They were loaded with profanity, sexual tales and no story or attractive people. At the library I told my wife she will be wasting her time and I was right. Boy have we declined as a nation. We reached the peak in the 50’s and have gone downhill ever since. Not hard to figure out what happened and many of the SOB’S who did this to us are dead like LBJ and Ted Kennedy.

Fred
Fred
10 years ago

By the way I wanted to clarify my comment. By “took out” I meant from the library and not bought in a store. Why support the enemy?

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Thanks for sharing!