Kiss
Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich) 1955
Robert
Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly came near the end of the golden age of film
noir, but it’s so fundamentally wrapped up in the definitions of the genre
that it’s no wonder that the French film critics that initially coined that
term responded to it as much as they did. You can feel the fingerprints of this
film all over the early masterpieces of the French New Wave (particularly Breathless,
which seems to draw much of its creative breath from here). The energy that this
movie sends off is so radioactively intense that it seems entirely possible that
it could kick off a new movement in film, and that’s all the more impressive
since it’s a B-picture. Still, no amount of badly post-synchronized dialogue
can mask the technical and aesthetic prowess that Aldrich shows here.
Though
this adaptation of a Mickey Spillane novel is outwardly a fairly straightforward
genre piece, it’s infused with a rough and tumble grittiness that makes it
seem far move alive than most of its contemporary crime films. It soaks in the
seediness of its Los Angeles setting. Mike Hammer (a very brusque Ralph Meeker),
the sleazy detective at this sordid story’s core, travels mostly at night
through this other city that never
sleeps, and that gives the impression that everything you see going on is
somehow wrong, since it’s happening while decent people are at home in bed.
Hammer’s movement from elite estates to burnt-out juke joints shows just how
prevalent this urban decay is. As much as Hammer is presented as the lone
crusader of truth here, chasing after an answer that he doesn’t know the
question to, he’s also definitely a resident of this environment and shares
its grizzled morality. Aldrich’s skewed camera angles and extreme close-ups
help lend a queasy mood while we’re watching this tour of the city’s
underworld, and this mood seems to rub off on the detective as the film goes on.
Near the end of the film, as his anxieties increase, he begins
bitch-slapping nearly everyone in sight as he grows more and more frenzied in
his search.
Even
the series of pretty girls that Hammer comes into contact with during his quest
are no exception to the corruption that extends to everyone here. The amazing
thing about Hammer isn’t that he begins to slide downward, but that he’s
held on as long as he has. Kiss Me Deadly touches
on several issues that seemed rooted at the heart of civil unrest in 1950’s
America, including the threats of political conspiracy, nuclear weapons, and
racism. A hysterical tone permeates every element of the film, to the
extent that even the opening credits move backwards. Though Hammer is presented
here as a modern day Pandora, it’s less disturbing that he finds evil than
that he doesn’t have to look very far to find it. It’s seeping through every
crack of every dirty sidewalk trying to get at him.
07-24-02
* * *
*
Jeremy Heilman
