Movie of the Week

 

Kiss Me Deadly, directed by Robert Aldrich. 1955

AFI has their 100 Years, 100 whatever series. The Academy has the Oscars. Ebert and Roeper have thumbs.

I have opinions. Strong ones. And you will hear them. Possibly weekly, possibly not.

And without further ado, here is entry #1 (which is to say, here is my first entry. "#1" does not signify that it is the best, most important, scariest of them all, etc., since the order of these postings will be entirely arbitrary):

Kiss Me Deadly is a classic film noir -- some even say the last of the genre cycle -- featuring Ralph Meeker as low rent private eye Mike Hammer. In the opening scene, a young and sexy Cloris Leachman (yes, she was once both young and sexy, believe it or not) runs out into traffic, frantically calling for help. The car she stops belongs to Hammer, whose willingness to give the escaped mental patient a ride entangles him in a mystery much more intriguing than the crappy divorce cases that make up the bulk of his business.

What Hammer and all the bad guys (and there are a lot of bad guys in this movie) are after is something they refer to as "the great whatzit". And how great this "whatzit" is. It's no McGuffin, it's the real deal.

In fact, in the original Mickey Spillane book upon which this film is based, the "whatzit" was illegal narcotics of some sort. But due to the Production Code that ruled post-war Hollywood, the producers were told to come up with an alternative to drugs for their adaptation. What they replace the maryjane with is so shocking, bleak and hyper-political that I theorize it had to have been the plan all along, the producers pulling a bait and switch on the censors so they could make a brash, controversial statement in a tense, Cold War environment. Liberal Hollywood, there you go again.

Something else that makes this film special is the great period Los Angeles location shooting, with Bunker Hill prominently featured, and a shot that may or may not include David Geffen's large parcel of beachfront property in Malibu. And check out Mike Hammer's reel-to-reel proto-answering machine! Super cool.

Finally, the DVD contains two endings to the film: Robert Aldrich's original ending, which was cut off by accident, or possibly on purpose, nobody really knows; and the more abrupt ending with which the film was released. Watch both. Rent it and lemme know whatcha think.