568 Kiss Me Deadly

[Cold Bishop]

And as many times as I've seen KMD...it never dawned on me until last night that Jack Elam was one of the toughs at the beach house!

Really? Isn't there a big sweaty, bug-eyed close up of him right before Hammer takes care of him?

[Tribe]

And as many times as I've seen KMD...it never dawned on me until last night that Jack Elam was one of the toughs at the beach house!

Really? Isn't there a big sweaty, bug-eyed close up of him right before Hammer takes care of him?

Yeah, there is...but it never clicked. I always associate Elam with the big sweaty bug eye version from the beginning of Once Upon a Time In the West.

[jojo]

Watched the Criterion last night...first time watching...very surreal stuff. Well, it's not actually truly "surreal", but the film had an off-kilter, almost fever-dreamish impression on me. I almost caved and bought the MGM disc several times over the years...hadn't realized until now that the MGM wasn't anamorphic.

Also, I really, really, loved the sound the "box" makes. It's iconic.

[stwrt]

Watched the Criterion last night...first time watching...very surreal stuff. Well, it's not actually truly "surreal", but the film had an off-kilter, almost fever-dreamish impression on me.

A lot of Kiss Me Deadly seems surreal to me, or even comic/surreal. Take the scene where a brand new car has been delivered outside Mike Hammer's apartment. Hammer knows that a stick of dynamite has been placed clumsily under the bonnet and rushes to let Nick/Va-va-voom know before Nick is blown sky-high. And then he says to Nick, "When we get to the garage we can look for the one they didn't want us to find !"

As an aside, I don't think I've ever seen someone climb so many staircases as Mike Hammer does in this movie.

[matrixschmatrix]

So pretty well everything about this release is killer, but the Mikey Spillane documentary is rough to get through- I mean, not only is the guy kind of an ass (and everyone singing his praises does it largely in terms of 'he made so much money') but I've just seen a movie, a commentary, and a different special feature all of which relentless attacked the man's whole worldview. Watching a bunch of people with bad haircuts wax rhapsodic about how sophisticated Mike Hammer seemed to them is kind of dizzying, and not in a good way.

[Brian C]

I thought the same thing. I wasn't familiar with any of the talking heads in the Spillane doc other than Keach, but none of them struck me as terribly credible. You're really reaching for testimony when you track down the "Doll", for example. Although it was amusing to me that so much of their praise was of the nostalgic "when I was a kid" variety, which unintentionally reinforces the juvenility of the Spillane stuff (which to be fair, I've read none of).

On the other hand, love that Bezzerides talks like Dana Carvey's Mickey Rooney impression.

[Tribe]

It is a dumb documentary, and the Mick was no Shakespeare...but he gets something of a bum rap. What Spillane's fans wanted was action, and hard-boiled action at that, and he gave it to them. His novels aren't the finest that came out of the new American noir paperback originals from the Fifties...but they are entertaining in their own right.

[matrixschmatrix]

I actually have a few of them, and while it's hard to get past the reactionary politics, the violence against women, and the Red baiting, they're definitely kind of fun- you can tell that he's a former comic book writer, in a good way. It's hard to escape the feeling that Spillane was kind of dumb, though.

On the other hand, love that Bezzerides talks like Dana Carvey's Mickey Rooney impression.

Between this, Thieves' Highway, and On Dangerous Ground, Bezzerides was obviously an incredible talent. I'd be really interested to see Sirocco, the Bogie movie he wrote.

[Tribe]

From Kiss Me Deadly:

All I saw was the dame standing there in the glare of the headlights waving her arms like a huge puppet and the curse I spit out filled the car and my own ears. I wrenched the wheel over, felt the rear end start to slide, brought it out with a splash of power and almost ran up the side of a cliff as the car fishtailed. The brakes bit in, gouging a furrow in the shoulder, then jumped to the pavement and held.

Somehow I had managed a sweeping curve around the babe. For a few seconds she had been living on stolen time because instead of getting out of the way she had tried to stay in the beam of the headlights. I sat there and let myself shake. The butt that had fallen out of my mouth had burned a hole in the leg of my pants and I flipped it out the window. The stink of burned rubber and brake lining hung in the air like smoke and I was thinking of every damn thing I ever wanted to say to a hairbrained woman so I could have it ready when I got my hands on her.

That was as far as I got. She was there in the car beside me, the door slammed shut and she said, "Thanks, mister."

[Feego]

It would have been interesting if Criterion could have included The Girl Hunters, the film adaptation in which Spillane himself plays Mike Hammer. I've never seen it myself, and I understand it's no masterpiece, but the old Image disc is out of print and it sounds just as pulpy and fascinating as his novels.

[MrGregoryArkadin]

Does anyone have any information on the A.I. Bezzerides documentary? Apparently it was released in 2005, not 2007 as the Bluray says [Bezzerides died in 2007, perhaps thats got something to do with it]- I really want to see it and it boasts a soundtrack by the amazing DC band Fugazi, any leads?

[Feego]

You're really reaching for testimony when you track down the "Doll", for example.

Oh come on. It's always fun to see Ulla from The Producers.

[jbeall]

From Kiss Me Deadly:

All I saw was the dame standing there in the glare of the headlights waving her arms like a huge puppet and the curse I spit out filled the car and my own ears. I wrenched the wheel over, felt the rear end start to slide, brought it out with a splash of power and almost ran up the side of a cliff as the car fishtailed. The brakes bit in, gouging a furrow in the shoulder, then jumped to the pavement and held.

Somehow I had managed a sweeping curve around the babe. For a few seconds she had been living on stolen time because instead of getting out of the way she had tried to stay in the beam of the headlights. I sat there and let myself shake. The butt that had fallen out of my mouth had burned a hole in the leg of my pants and I flipped it out the window. The stink of burned rubber and brake lining hung in the air like smoke and I was thinking of every damn thing I ever wanted to say to a hairbrained woman so I could have it ready when I got my hands on her.

That was as far as I got. She was there in the car beside me, the door slammed shut and she said, "Thanks, mister."

James Joyce it's not, but I love it.

[colinr0380]

I like the way that the film is sort of a cautionary tale of being grateful for the woman you've got and take for granted (the secretary that is being pimped out to drum up adulterous clients for Hammer's Private Eye business while he is out chatting up the wives as well) rather than falling for all of those seductively mysterious nuclear blondes.

Hammer's more in love with stirring up an intrigue rather than the result (I think best illustrated in that long sequence when he returns to his apartment and spends a minute or two skulking around checking the place out before Velda calls). Of course money is another goal, but it is more played down here than in other noirs where nothing else matters but the cash. As soon as Hammer gets a taste of the uncontrollable power contained in the box he immediately drops it and calls in the previously portrayed as threatening authorities to take charge (which to me makes this film an interesting companion to the 'petty thief-turned-saviour of American values when the chips are down' Pickup On South Street)

Watching this for the first time in a number of years I love the way that throughout the middle section Hammer is sort of pinballing between three or four key locations vaguely following threads for an unknown goal. Often on watching I find that mid-section quite disorienting, in the way that Hammer is following up a number of different clues simultaneously - it gets a little confusing but I find that works to show the frustration and anger building in Hammer as he starts to rough people up first and maybe ask questions later. However strangely he only ever seems to ask questions that he already knows the answers to - never taking the trouble to interrogate the people he is talking to for any extra info! Is it a case of noir film style taken to clipped, economic extremes? Or is Hammer purposesfully trying to get through his investigation knowing as little as possible about the great wotsit, only that it is valuable enough to kill for? Is he just trying to exorcise the memory of Christina more than anything else? (Which could place this aspect of the film in the same vein as Soderbergh's The Good German) As soon as Hammer does some serious legwork in the middle section things reach various dead ends. Instead it is the women of the film who are providing all the information and pushing Hammer forward - with the only woman who is not doing this for her own ends being the already characterised from the beginning as being in thrall to Mike, Velda (and even there are her own ends finally netting a partner in the oblivious Mike? Someone who has already provoked jealousy by being more fascinated with a dead woman than with her).

He may be a thug and bully but the amorality on display becomes darkly amusing as well - the venal pathologist wanting hard cash for the key he took from Christina's stomach (he makes an effective contrast to Lily who wants her share and when told the item cannot be split 50/50 damningly says that she'll take it all then - the pathologist doesn't want to get involved in any long term intrigues, just receive as much cash as he can get there and then, though he also pushes his luck too far!) gets his just desserts. However at the same time the music lover gets one of his prized records snapped in half though Hammer does also praise the music and put the needle back on the record once he gets the information he wants (although he also, as detailed in the commentary, treats the chap really rudely!), which suggests a difference in treatment for the more working class 'ethnic' characters, as previously seen in the movers at Christina's apartment giving information on the whereabouts of Lily. That can perhaps be traced back to the positively, almost portrayed as caricatures or as saintly fool, ethnic characters contrasted against the more unscrupulous second generation 'grown up with American values' characters in Thieves' Highway. Va-va-voom Nick is the saintly ethnic fool of Kiss Me Deadly who matters somewhat more than Velda and whose loss is felt more deeply when he is sacrificed to kick off the final act. Though there is also that issue of the Italian mover who directs Hammer to Lily's new apartment - was that a pure act of altruism or, thinking in paranoid noir terms, is he letting Mike fall into the clutches of the femme fatale of the piece?

This also gets contrasted against the clerk at the Athletic Club, one of the final 'civilian' people Hammer interacts with, doesn't even get a chance to object before he gets slapped silly in a brutal scene, yet also a scene that is darkly amusing for showing how through Hammer is with even the most basic niceties (and he was never much for them in the first place!) by this point, leaving the poor clerk to bear the brunt of that misplaced anger. It makes me wonder that if the Mike at this point would have just run Christina over (which he was on the brink of doing anyway!) at the beginning of the film, in order to save himself the time!

There is that sense that everyone is amoral, and double crossing or trying to conceal their double dealings from others, while the very few people who seem on the level, either childishly open like Nick or a lovelorn enabler such as Velda (or Christina, or the clerk at the Athletic Club) are the ones who end up paying the price in a kill or be killed society. Soberin is perhaps an exception, in the sense that he as his name implies is always very sober and on the level, even while providing the means for other characters to be drugged into unconsciousness! (I love the way that the art gallery owner takes sleeping pills to avoid having to have a confrontation with Hammer - a character who is literally trying to prevent themselves to having to face up to the implications of some of their more questionable activities!)

Lily is perhaps the other exception in the firery climax, though she (in a moment that kind of prefigures the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark) seems to be ecstatic at the same time as she is going up in flames, in a final sadistic mingling of pain and pleasure that suggests death is a small price to pay in order to be in the presence of such an overpowering experience.

[dad1153]

Just saw this today for the first time on Blu-ray. For the first two thirds I wasn't enjoying this very loose (i.e. completely different) film adaption of Spillane's "bedroom dick" as portrayed by Ralph Meeker. Nothing against Ralph, but when I think Mike Hammer I don't see him as either Meeker portrayed him or Aldrich envisioned Mike here, in mostly ironed shirts and nice cars/suits with then-modern conveniences (an answering machine?); only the dames throwing themselves at Mike and his general apathy toward them came across as classic Spillane. Plus, given the Hays Code rules still in effect in '55, whenever there's violence, tough guy stuff or even a hint of steamy sexuality it feels slightly neutered (particularly Cloris Leachman's fate). Then Mike peeks into "the box" (which came completely out of nowhere to me... WOW! :O) and "Kiss Me Deadly" final third turns into both a fantastic noir-by-proxy piece of paranoid cinema AND a cool Mike Hammer movie. Meeker's mug grins with such animal delight as Hammer begins bitch-slapping people around (particularly the forensic guy with the desk drawer) and the veneer of civility from earlier in the film vanishes; the more wrinkled/crooked Mike's clothes/ties are the better the movie/character is, IMO. The finale doesn't add-up to much of anything storywise (lots is left unanswered) besides (a) Mike's quest to find the great 'what's it' got him in trouble, again, plus (b) women are selfish, greedy and deserve whatever bad's coming to them (but at least one is worth saving). But man, what a collection of memorable images and unmitigated bleakness! "Kiss Me Deadly" would make a great double-bill with Kurosawa's "I Live In Fear." :)

[Boosmahn]

On my second time watching this, I noticed that an “X” symbol was in the background very frequently. I spotted it on the exterior of Hammer’s apartment building, behind Christina in the torture scene, in a painting in Christina’s apartment, (comically) when Hammer was tied spread-eagle on the bed, and in the beach house’s support beams. Normally, two of these could be written off as consequences of basic architecture, but with as many appearances as there are I doubt these were coincidental. (There are probably additional instances I missed, too.) A nod to Scarface or foreshadowing for the end? A mix of both?