Kiss Me Deadly

In the late 1940s and into the 1950s when film noir ruled theaters with its uniquely dark storytelling and innovative filming techniques, no one was more popular writing crime novels than author Mickey Spillane.  He started off writing comic books before turning to novels in 1947 with his debut story, I, Jury, eventually writing over 20 novels in all.  His stories were incredibly dark and hard-edged, not looking to pull any punches.  They seem like the perfect springboard for film noir flicks.

Nowhere was Spillane's writing more appropriate for film noir than his most famous character, private detective/investigator Mike Hammer. For lack of a better or more eloquent description, all I can think of to describe this individual is that he's one gnarly dude.  Male leads in film noir -- film or literature -- are never particularly likable characters, but there's almost always some glimmer of goodness in them. Hammer? Not so much. He is brutally violent, hates women basically across the board, and also seems genuinely pissed at the world. All of that is on display in 1955's Kiss Me Deadly.

Driving through the desert outside Los Angeles in the dead of night, Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) almost crashes into a young woman, Christina (Cloris Leachman), trying to wave him down. He picks her up, quickly finding out she's escaped from an insane asylum. It's only a few miles later where they're driven off the road. Mike wakes up hours later, beaten severely to find that Christina has been tortured to death. She told him if anything happens, 'Remember her.' Now, Mike wants to know what's going on. What was this woman involved with? With help from his assistant, Velda (Maxine Cooper), he starts to look into it. Already as jaded as possible, even Mike can't prepare for what he finds.

I really don't know what to make of this movie. Released in 1955, it's basically different from any other movie you will have seen from that year or even that decade. Director Robert Aldrich puts his own darker, more cynical take on the film noir genre. It is a black and white world where there really isn't any "white," as in anything good. The characters -- with an exception here and there -- are out for themselves. It's a seedy world where nothing is on the level. Visually, Aldrich uses some cool, ahead of their time camera techniques, and films on location in and around 1950s Los Angeles. The time portal argument again, yes, 1950s LA looks cool.

Starting with Meeker in the lead role as Hammer, there aren't any big names associated with this cast. It helps here because as is so often the case, as an audience we don't have much in the way of preconceived notions or backgrounds on these people. Whether he was playing a good guy or a bad guy (typically bad or at least morally questionable good), Meeker has an intensity on-screen like few other actors in Hollywood.  In that way, he's an ideal choice to play Hammer, one of the more despicable lead characters ever. He's just oozing anger, intensity and pure rage as he investigates the weirdness of the girl's death. More importantly, you feel he's capable of just about anything. His "business" as a detective involves blackmailing clients by sleeping with the women or having Velda sleep with the men. White-washed 1950s movie this is not, but Meeker is at his best.

No big names at all after Meeker, but the cast is great nonetheless, mostly because of Spillane's writing. He has all these great characters, all with their own motivations and incentives.  Albert Dekker remains in the shadows most of the movie playing the baddie, Dr. Soberin, putting everything in motion. Cooper as Velda is a good match to Meeker, equally cynical but still somehow with feelings for Hammer. She's the scarred female lead that these noirs so often used/needed. Also worth mentioning are Wesley Addy as Pat Murphy, a cop associate if not friend of Hammer's, Paul Stewart as one of Soberin's men (with thugs Jack Lambert and Jack Elam), Gaby Rodgers as Gabrielle, Christina's long-suffering roommate, and Nick Dennis as Nick, one of Meeker's few friends, a mechanic. Even look for a young Strother Martin as someone Hammer interviews.

This movie has gained quite a cult reputation over the years, largely due to the fact that it's basically an anti-1950s movie.  You just won't see many movies like this one from that decade.  But somewhere in between Spillane's novel and the Aldrich film version, any sort of coherence gets lost in the shuffle.  It opens with a bang, the opening sequence is one of the coolest I can think of. But as Hammer starts his investigation, the story weaves this way and that way without any sense of direction. It is a talky movie, and not necessarily a good one. Hammer slaps countless people to get the information he wants, and then moves on. It took me several sittings to get through this 106-minute movie just because I struggled to get involved with anything that was happening.

That builds to the ending, the reason Christina (Leachman in her screen debut) was brutally murdered. The story goes timely, tying things up with a reference to the Manhattan Project in the Nuclear Age.  SPOILERS STOP READING SPOILERS How we don't know, but she has in her possession a box that contains some sort of nuclear/radioactive item that when released actually blows up a house. We've got this hard-edged detective story, and then WHAM!, we're going symbolic science fiction about evil and the end of the world. There is an alternate ending (read about it HERE) which actually sounds better considering the studio interference.

Kiss Me Deadly <---trailer (1955): **/****