[ April 24, 2024 ]
Tonight's Saturday Night Cinema feature is the dazzling film noir masterpeice, Kiss Me Deadly. "Aldrich's annihilating masterpiece, one of the decade's key works."
Regarded by many critics as the ultimate film noir, and by many more as the finest movie adaptation of a book by Mickey Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly stars Ralph Meeker as Spillane's
anti-social private eye Mike Hammer. While driving down a lonely road
late one evening, Hammer picks up a beautiful blonde hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman),
dressed in nothing but a raincoat. At first, Hammer assumes that the
incoherent girl is an escaped lunatic; his mind is changed for him when
he and the girl are abducted by two thugs. The men torture the girl to
death as the semiconscious Hammer watches helplessly. He himself escapes
extermination when the murderers' car topples off a cliff and he is
thrown clear. Seeking vengeance, Hammer tries to discover the secret
behind the girl's murder. Among those who cross his path in the film's
tense, tingling 105 minutes are a slimy gangster (Paul Stewart), a
turncoat scientist (Albert Dekker), and the dead woman's sexy roommate (Gaby Rodgers). All clues lead to a mysterious box — the "Great Whatsit," as Hammer's secretary Velda (Maxine Cooper)
describes it. Both the box and Velda are stolen by the villains, at
which point Hammer discovers that the "Whatsit" contains radioactive
material of awesome powers. The apocalyptic climax is doubly devastating
because we're never quite certain if Hammer survives (he doesn't
narrate the story, as was the case in most Mike Hammer films and TV
shows). Director Robert Aldrich and scriptwriter Jack Moffit transcend Kiss Me Deadly's basic genre trappings to produce a one-of-a-kind melodrama for the nuclear age. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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4 Comments
10 years ago
As they’d say in Bowery Boy Town, “Include me out.” All the Mike Hammer movies are awful, and “Kiss Me Deadly” is decidedly the worst of the lot. That goes for the Stacy Keach and Darren McGavin TV series, as well. I doubt that Spillane signed off on this travesty of his fine novel, but even if he had, it’s a well-known fact that once Hollywood has its paws on the production rights of a novel it would rather just ruin, an author has little say in what comes out of the studio. Sometimes the movie is better than the novel (e.g., “The Four Feathers” – 1939, or “Tunes of Glory”), but they’re as rare as purple coconuts. “Kiss Me Deadly” has little to do with Spillane’s novel. The exploitation of the Mike Hammer name is shameless. The only praise that I’d pay director Robert Aldrich and scriptwriter Jack Moffitt is that they did a fine job of bitching up the novel. And in doing so, they “transcended” it right out of the solar system. Really, Pam, I thought you had better taste than this.
10 years ago
I couldn’t get in to this on Pam. But I’ll keep watching your Saturday nighters 😉
10 years ago
I couldn’t disagree with you more. I watched it last night, and it was a great period piece. I was a fan of Spillane when I was young and, although I think he writes solid page-turners, he’s not Shakespeare; some license may be taken without essentially changing him.
Beautifully shot! Tight, quirky story that moves along and keeps your interest. The only thing that was a little weird for me was the casting of the females. Perhaps it was purposeful; the whole thing had a slightly surreal aura to it. Altman really captured Spillane’s grit. Created a fully absorbing world, which is no small feat.
The film ages well as a noir film; it’s one of the best. And young Cloris Leachman was great. Subtle and real.
10 years ago
You’re really judging the movie by its non-essentials, including that it was a “period piece.” Good film adaptations by screenwriters (and directors) employ the essentialization of a novel’s plot elements. This movie threw out all the plot essentials of Splillane’s novel and substituted the director’s and screenwriter’s own arbitrary ones.
