Visitors Review

kakaako (2012-05-22 02:30)

Trash, well financed trash.

How did Mike Hammer live - in a penthouse with a GOLF BAG stashed inthe corner next to a big screen cathode ray tube TV and a snazzyfireplace? Nah, he'd knock back a bottle of rye and twenty unfilteredCamels on the couch or floor of his fly-specked office or in the stinkof a lousy downtown LA flop house, wiping the dried red crust and oilsmeared mud off his face, that's how. Spillane wrote trash paperbacks,for sure, but how do you make it worse? Give some desperate schemingproducer a blank check because he thinks any Film Noir titled crap willsell at the box office, add some over-the-hill hot tomatoes and justgenerally screw-up the story-line by some retard, drugged out screenwriter, that's how!

michaelciafone (2012-05-21 19:27)

Best Film Noir ever!

It was an easy decision for me actually.. I asked myself: If I couldonly have one Film Noir in my collection what would it be?Sunset Blvd. and Double Indemnity are great. But they're lacking the"underworld" element I prefer in Noirs. The Bogey movies are too butthey seem a little dated somehow. I also considered Touch of Evil, butI had to subtract points because Charlton Heston portraying a Mexicancop just irked me. Then there's Kiss Me Deadly. A great movie with lotsof memorable characters and more classic lines than any other movie Ican think of. Ralph Meeker IS Mike Hammer..It seems like the role waswritten for him. Va-va-voom...Pow!

(2012-05-19 20:52)

Seminal

From Sam Spade to Phillip Marlowe to Jake Gittes, no cinema private eye is treated so disdainfully as Mike Hammer in "Kiss Me Deadly". An icon of the Mc Carthy 1950's, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer hates only one thing more than commies, namely the other half of the species, women. To their credit, director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides see through the patriotic veneer to the fascist thug lurking beneath. The film follows Hammer as he blunders through a series of plot mishaps, smashing faces, abusing women, and making all the wrong choices - disastrously, up to and including the apocalyptic finale. Crew-cut Ralph Meeker swaggers through the role in appropriately dim fashion, with a perpetual sneer and a muscle bound pelvic lead - forever beyond self reflection. This is a Hammer that lives up to its name.All of this would be only half an equation had not director Aldrich and production crew pulled off the cautionary tale with such flair and artistry. Noir elements abound, with emphasis on creative camera angles and complex set compositions that keep eyes glued to the screen. Night time shots are beautifully realized and integrated into the seedy plot that is Hammer's appropriate milieu. Critics of the day panned the film, expecting a more conventional style and heroic Hammer. Few films however have been more ahead of their time in both style and content, nor was anyone with the possible exception of Nicholas Ray more attuned to the psychic instability that underlay the outward confomism of the period. Though not a masterpiece, "Kiss Me Deadly" needs no rationalizing. It remains one of the eccentric gems of the modern American screen.

(2012-05-19 15:18)

A++++++++++ Product, F--------- For the Box Art

Criterion puts out another absolutely stellar release. Nothing whatsoever can be said bad in terms of the quality of any of the products they offer. They are consistently well above what anyone could consider "top notch." However, this product gets 1 star from me. Why? Because they spoil the ending on the front cover of the box.

(2012-05-18 15:50)

Feelm nwahrrr

Dark and moody and violent, more style than substance -- and enough more to make it all right (as Humphrey Bogart said in another movie in this genre). Credited with inspiring the entire French New Wave cinema movement of the late 1950s. (In one scene that would have sent those French directors, Ralph Meeker walks a deserted but lamp-lit city street late at night, trailed by a would-be assassin. Their footsteps echo in the stark landscape; their shadows are about a mile long.) Reportedly, French critical writing found deep symbolism in various scenes, whereas director Robert Aldrich responded that this was news to him, they were just shooting a detective picture. True to the spirit of the Mike Hammer novels, there is a pervasive vagueness. Who are all these thugs? (We don't even see their faces at first.) What are they after? (A nasty little radioactive Pandora's Box, we eventually learn; it is very well staged but little explained, and is ultimately a fool's prize.) Well-cast Meeker portrays unredeemed sleazy private eye Mike Hammer, whose normal line is blackmailing married men with the help of his girlfriend Velda (he carries a .45, Velda a .32). The menacing thugs, wearing baggy clothes and fedoras, we might take for NKVD (as indeed they are, in other of the Mickey Spillane novels circa 1950, and also near the end in the 1994 film _Burnt by the Sun_), but sufficient unto this film is the evil thereof, without contribution from Stalin, Beria & Co.

dgz78 (2012-05-18 09:25)

Noir Dreck

If this is top quality film noir, then film noir is overrated junk.Fortunately, this movie is not top quality film noir.Meeker is an unlikable Mike Hammer that makes Harry Lime look likeMother Theresa. Orson Welles made Lime interesting enough that youcared about him. I never cared whether Meeker's Hammer lived or died(though I knew he was going to live even after taking a bullet at pointblank). At least when he gets shot the movie is almost over.I've never read any Spillane so I don't know how faithful the movie isto the book. I have to believe the books are better than thisscreenplay. Having read Chandler, Cain and Hammett, I know the moviesdon't always faithfully follow the novels but the spirit of the novelscome through. But this movie feels like a bad TV show that gets adeserved cancellation after one week.Speaking of the ending, at least Tarantino had the good sense to nevertell us what the glowing object in the briefcase was. Here, the atomicmaterial burns Hammer on the wrist and later burns down the beach houseafter it "escapes" the magical container just by taking the lid off.And Hammer gets up after taking a bullet and finds Velda just in timebefore the house burns down. Maybe the ocean water combined with theradiation from the house cured the bullet wound.The opening with Cloris Leachman was interesting but it was alldownhill from there. The plot turns were all telegraphed ahead of timeand you know at the start of a scene if a character will get killed.Especially ridiculous is Hammer quickly escaping after being drugged.At least in Farewell My Lovely, Chandler had Marlowe struggle for threedays after being drugged.The frustrating thing is that were moments that showed a sense of styleand composition but they were fleeting and ruined whenever Hammeropened his mouth.The good news is that this was not the start of a Mike Hammer series -I think any studio executive that suggested a sequel was reassignedmopping the executive washroom and making coffee for the office. Wait,I wouldn't trust such a person to make coffee - it might be beyondtheir mental abilities.I give it 2 stars for the rare times the noir style started to showthrough. Unless you want to see how a good idea can be made into a badmovie, I would steer clear of this mess.

Claudio Carvalho (2012-05-17 17:25)

Remember Me

While driving in a road nearby Los Angeles during the night, thedivorce private eye Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is forced to give a rideto a frightened woman that jumps in front of his car. The hitchhikerChristina Bailey (Cloris Leachman) asks Mike to forget her, if theyreach a bus stop; or remember her if they do not make it. Suddenlyanother car forces him to stop, Christina is tortured and murdered, andthey are put back in Mike's car and dropped in a cliff. Mike survives,and when he leaves the hospital weeks later with his secretary Velda(Maxine Cooper), the police and some dangerous bad guys press Mike totell what Christina had told him. Mike believes that Christina hidesome treasure and decides to investigate what Christina had hidden."Kiss me Deadly" is a weird movie about greed and ambition. The leadcharacter, Mike Hammer, is pulled into a whirlpool of lies andtragedies just because he believes that he may find a pot of gold inthe end of a rainbow. However, he had the option to forget everything,but he prefers to find the Pandora Box. The content of the mysteriousbox seems to be uranium, but it is never clear. I do not know howlethal would be the exposition to its radiation, and whether a generalcontamination is spread when Gabrielle opens the box, but I believe theintention of the author is really to have an open end. My vote isseven.Title (Brazil): "A Morte Num Beijo" ("The Death in a Kiss")

JohnRouseMerriottChard (2012-05-17 02:00)

Yesterday I was looking for a thread, today i'm looking for a piece of string.

Mike Hammer is driving down a dark highway when a half naked blondeforces him to stop, this event sends Hammer spiralling on a journeythat may have a cataclysmic consequence for all involved.Kiss Me Deadly is a harsh movie, it contains an array of charactersthat are dislike-able in the extreme, nobody can be trusted, andeveryone on the surface appears to be selfish in their respectivemotivations. Taking in torture, murder, violence on tap, and awonderful mystery plot, it's not hard to see why the film has gained amassive reputation as the years have rolled by, for although it'sbrutish in substance, the film is a dam riveting piece of work. RalpMeeker is excellent as Hammer, a character who refuses to lay down, hegets knocked down constantly, but he gets back up tougher than before,he becomes the kind of hard boiled guy who hits first and then asksquestions later. The direction from Robert Aldrich is perfect, offkilter camera work drags the viewer into this skew whiff world thatHammer has entered, and we often only see shots of bad guys torsos tomake them faceless thugs, it's down right aggressive film making thathits the intended spot.Kiss Me Deadly has influenced many others since it's release, be itRepo Man or Pulp Fiction, it's impact is still being felt today.Containing a much talked about ending {both the restored and alternateendings work on differing levels to many}, it's a film that leavesthings up for discussion and debate, but what we do know for sure isthat it's explosive and crowns what is now firmly established as acrime classic, 8.5/10.

ellen-13 (2012-05-09 20:01)

Hot stuff

I'm not familiar with the Hammer books, but I was caught from the verystartof this movie by Cloris and by the sleaziness of every single character!Hammer is defined by the cops at the start, as a hero who no viewer couldpossibly have any connection to. What was wrong with him--his girlfriendisa nymphomaniac and he is totally cold to her??!!I was transfixed, the way people get when there's an accident on thehighway. And the ending was quite wholly gruesome, suited the wholepicturesatisfactorily.I have to say I was truly impressed to see his version of a phoneansweringmachine! Built into the wall! The recording even had the same phrases ascurrent answering machines!I assumed the bachelor pad was tidy because he had a cleaning lady or hisVelda (what a weird name) is his slave in more ways thanone.

(2012-05-09 08:55)

VA VA VOOM - PAOW !

Robert Aldrich's KISS ME DEADLY is one of these movies I watch every two or three years with the same pleasure. When I discovered it for the first time long ago, Film Noir meant Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hawks, James Cagney or John Huston to me. So imagine the shock KISS ME DEADLY gave me. Everything was so innovative in this movie from the initial credits rolling backwards over Cloris Leachman running half-naked on the road and gasping in Mike Hammer's car with a quite erotic intensity. From the sadistic torture scene of Christina Bailey to the character of Maxine -Velda- Cooper who helps Mike Hammer to nail adultery husbands by seducing them. From the secondary characters so well written that it seems that they all have a tremendously important role in the story.At last, the performance of Ralph -Mike Hammer- Meeker is so perfect that it's hard to imagine another actor in the role. I personally can't. And Nick Dennis, Mike Hammer's friend, whose onomatopeia are now part of Movie History. And, and...OK ! check for yourselves if you still don't know this movie. Superb copy with various subtitles, the alternate ending and the original trailer.A DVD zone your library.

bob the moo (2012-05-08 05:04)

Far from a classic but looks great and has a classic opening and ending

Low rent private detective Mike Hammer picks up a hitch hiker on his wayhome late one night – a desperate young woman who has just escaped fromsomewhere. They talk for a while but their car is ambushed and he wakes updays later in the hospital with only vague memories. Curious as to who shewas he starts to dig, the more he finds the more he realises just how bigthe truth could be.This film always bugs me a little – the ending is iconic and the film itselfseems to have a very high reputation with film lovers and professionalcritics but I struggle to see it when I actually watch it. The plot is asolid noir with clever (unexplained) touches that make it stand out, but theactual detective story is pretty impenetrable and doesn't make a great dealof sense – I didn't get caught up and get breathless with the investigationsimply because a lot of it didn't make sense. This really takes away fromthe film.It does look fantastic though despite this. The cinematography is excellentand has plenty of really well framed shots. The use of black and white isgood, with shadows used to typical noir effect but with unique and clevertouches. The opening credits are excellent – the breathless pants of awoman are mesmerising – and the ending is different enough to stick in yourmind (everyone knows it due to Pulp Fiction now anyway!). However thefilm's flaws are too great in the area of plotting and performance. I don'tactually mind watching a slightly confusing noir with workmanlike actingwhen it is a B movie, but it's the lofty idea of itself that this film seemsto have that really makes me less forgiving.Aldrich seems to bless his film with a sense of self importance that is notjustified and doesn't sit well with the genre. The cast don't help – nonereally stand out and, although there are no bad performances, there are fewthat could be described as anything other than workmanlike or average. Meeker is pretty solid but that's his character – all he has to do is be abig lug because that's what his character is – in fact it's a big point that he is not a nice guy in any sense. That said, it would have been niceif he could have been a little more complex a guy.The ending IS memorable and pretty out there for the period and the genre,but this does not excuse a film that fails to rive itself forward and keepyou gripped. It looks great and has several really good touches butgenerally it is uninvolving and pretty average – the fact that it takesitself to be serious and worthy just seems to damage it all themore.

(2012-05-07 07:49)

One of the great P.I. noir films, with the restored ending!

Robert Aldrich's 1955 detective thriller, "Kiss Me Deadly," came at the end of the American classic film noir cycle, and shows the genre at its most violent, surreal, cruel, cynical, and visually bizarre. It's the last great explosive moment of the classic era of film noir -- and I do mean explosive. This is one detective film, like "Chinatown," which you won't soon forget.Aldrich and screenwriter A. I. Bezzirides took on Mickey Spillane's popular P.I. Mike Hammer, but aside from keeping the basic plot outline of the original novel, they completely changed the nature of the character in a very reactionary move. Spillane's Mike Hammer is a New York detective-avenger, a self-righteous vigilante who deals out justice when the paralyzed forces of the law can do nothing: he's a vicious knight on a mean-spirited quest to right wrongs through brute force. (The title of the first Hammer novel, "I, the Jury" pretty much sums up his attitude.) The movie relocates Hammer to Los Angeles and turns him into a shallow con-artist who only cares about his car and his looks. He's a lousy detective too, relying on knocking people around for information, often innocent inoffensive folks, and never really paying attention to the important details of the case. His detective work is entirely matrimonial, where he and his `assistant' Velda put the squeeze on couples to blackmail them. Hammer's motto is simple: "What's in it for me?" Ralph Meeker is perfect in the role, looking as if someone carved him out of slab of meat.No doubt, in this story Hammer is in way over his head...if only he knew it. He picks up a nearly naked girl (Cloris Leachman in an early role) who throws herself in front of his sports car. Later, they're run off the road, and faceless gangsters torture her to dearth and leave Hammer for dead. Hammer sets out to find out what's up; not because he cares what happened to the girl, but because he sniffs out big money and he'd like to get the guys who wrecked his sports car! Hammer finds himself in a violent quest to locate an object that everyone desires: a package called `The Great Whatsit.' The Great Whatsit isn't a meaningless red herring or Hitchcock McGuffin, however. Its contents are the great surprise of the plot, and the perfect exclamation point on a movie taking place in a chaotic world that seems to be falling apart. I won't tell what the Great Whatsit is (and shame on the reviewers here who have!), but...oh wow!And this brings us to the issue of the ending, and the only extra on this disc. (Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil the ending.) For years, "Kiss Me Deadly" had a mysteriously abrupt finale that many people praised for its surreal, weird quality. This was how I first saw it. However, in 1997 the original ending was discovered in Aldrich's personal print of the film by editor Glenn Erickson and film noir scholar Alain Silver. Apparently, an accident involving a careless projectionist snipped off part of the ending, so what we had enjoyed and critiqued for years was actually a mistake! The new ending shown on this disc fortunately doesn't change the tone of the film: it's still pretty astonishing, filled with a brilliant use of light and sound effects. However, there's still something about that abrupt ending that gets to people. The DVD contains the option to watch this original abrupt ending so you can make up your mind which one `feels' more right to you: what the director intended, or the mistake that many embraced as a stroke of brilliance.No matter which ending you like, "Kiss Me Deadly" is a fabulous piece of brutal crime cinema. The photography is amazing, filled with weird and surreal images and crazy camera angles. The performances are all dead-on: Meeker's ugly Mike Hammer; Albert Dekker as the sinister and poetry spouting Dr. Soberin; Wesley Addy as Hammer's police acquaintance Pat, the sole voice of reason in the mess; Paul Stewart as a smarmy L.A. gangster; the late Jack Elam as freaky thug; and Gaby Rodgers in the film's strangest performance as the distant, weird, but ultimately very dangerous (to every living thing on the planet!) Lily Carver.If you love detective films and film noir, "Kiss Me Deadly" is a great must-see classic. For a 1950s film, it is surprisingly violent and far ahead of its time. And either end will leave you shivering in shock. If only they had the guts to end films this way today!

(2012-05-04 22:40)

A valentine to '50s nuclear paranoia

Mike Hammer calls the shots in this odd, hard-boiled valentine to '50s nuclear paranoia.The stark black-and-white photography and the low production values give this film a studied brutality, as sadistic crooks chase after a case filled with a glowing radioactive isotope(this case ended up a pop reference in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction"). Sure, the plot is inaccurate regarding the properties of radiation, but if you're expecting to get a lesson in physics from Mickey Spillane then you should probably be watching fewer videos and reading more books. The French New Wave directors loved this film, but see it anyway. And see how long it takes you to spot a young Cloris Leachman. Longer than you think, I'm guessing.

(2012-05-04 07:26)

Kiss kiss bang bang with a message

Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me Mike, mouths the blonde with the gun just before the bitch plugs our hero. Well, he had it coming. First of all he picked up a blonde hitchhiker (cup size C). Then he wants to find out why she gets done over, why this happens, and why that happens. He is not very well read, though he gets to read some poetry by Christina Rossetti and listen to a bit of classical music and wander through an contemporary art gallery. There seems to be a subtext that evil is associated with culture and wealth whilst the ordinary good guy schmuck ends up with a bullet in the belly and a brunette cup size B. Nothing boring about this very well photographed, well written, kiss kiss bang bang film, with a message for the masses - there are some things best left in the box, including plutonium. Great characters in every role too, including what may be one of Jack Elam's earliest efforts.

albrechtcm (2012-05-02 06:07)

A film to consider

I got a chance to record this noir tale on TCM and looked forward toenjoying it. I watched it with interest, but I didn't really enjoy it.When the corny backward titles began to roll I realized the film was introuble. Cloris Leachman was good in a short but memorable role. Boycan she cry1 To me, Mr. Meeker never quite came across as Mike Hammer.He appeared much too passive and when he did get tough it was mainly ondefenseless stooges. Evidently he beat up a couple of baddies too, butthey didn't show that. Some scenes simply didn't make sense at all, aswhen Hammer almost appears hypnotized while the girl repeats, "Someonetried to get in." The relationship between Hammer and the cop wasunclear. On the one hand they appeared almost to be buddies, while onthe other hand the cop almost seemed to regard Hammer as a menace andwould like to pull his license permanently. The poor garage mechanicwith his VaVaVoom! showed more emotion than anyone else save for MsLeachman. We all know that when you never see the bad guy's face untilthe end, he has to be someone we know, a real surprise for us. Alas,Mr. Dekker shows up at the end and until then we never saw his face, sowhy was it hidden? Maybe so we wouldn't have too much chance to noticehis hairpiece. As one reviewer pointed out, we did get to see some nicewheels, and I loved the answering machine in Hammer's apartment. It wasfun seeing Cloris Leachman, Strother Martin and Jack Elam in earlyroles. For me, the ending was disappointing as well. To get a littleradiation from the contents of the box was one thing, but to blow upthe house and its contents sort of took me aback. I guess the doctorwas going to sell it to the Soviets or something. I still don't knowexactly what his intentions were except that they weren't good. And foran important tough mobster, Paul Stewart got short shrift. Still, it'sa film worth seeing once. And I have to remember that it was shot sofast it hit the theaters with the film still wet from the developer.

(2012-05-01 17:05)

Sleepy

I Agree with the last review here, so and stagie End of Noir was at least eight years prior this just reminds us of how we miss the Classic Black Cinema Features from the 40's.

(2012-04-30 23:49)

Very cool

More violent than just about any movie of its time. Stunning ending. Mike Hammer learns a big lesson in this one, and Ralph Meeker is the best film Hammer ever.

(2012-04-30 14:39)

Noirs Noir

One might have noticed the opening credits which scrolled from the bottom of the screen upwards.Have you ever seen a film do that?Ralph Meeker plays Hammer at his nastiest. Albert Dekker as Dr. Soberin plays it for effect. There are metaphors here galore..in the end she had to open the box of the great whatsit..what does that imply to the viewer.? Screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides..and its a corker..

lastliberal (2012-04-30 14:12)

So you're a fugitive from the laughing house.

Apocalyptic film noir is what one person used to describe this film.Seems the director (Robert Aldrich) was not crazy about the originalstory and made some changes that makes the story as real today as itwas in the 50s.Ralph Meeker, who had a long career in films was a virtual unknown atthe time he was picked to be the detective Mike Hammer. He was inAnthony Mann's The Naked Spur, but that was about it. He does a greatMike Hammer, even if you think of Stacey Keach first.Hammer picks up Christina (Cloris Leachman, in her film debut) on theside of the road and the adventure begins.Earlier this year, Maxine Cooper died at the age of 84. She made herfilm debut here, and then virtually disappeared. She made anoutstanding Velda, Hammer's secretary, but chose marriage over acting.One of the more interesting characters was Greek actor Nick Dennis, whoprovided continual laughs when he was on screen as Hammer's mechanic.There was even a young Jack Elam as one of the tough guys. He wasn't sotough against Hammer. Well, he did better the second time.I don't know how accurate things were when Gabrielle (Gaby Rodgers)opened the box, and I am sure it wasn't even close, but it sure madefor and exciting ending.

pnorris (2012-04-30 02:31)

Pitiful!

I'm absolutely amazed that anyone thinks this is a great film....otherthan some interesting framing and camera angles there is nothingremotely intriguing about it....the cast is mostly a collection ofrecognizable second rate actors....the dialogue is stifling....theediting is horrendous; probably more wasted space than in any film I'veseen in a long time...there is hardly any character development at alland certainly no characters other than Cloris Leachman's and themechanic which create any sympathy or connection with the viewer...theplot is absurd....the ending is virtually sci-fi and totallyunrealistic....in addition to there being too many "sunny" scenes,Hammer remains too upbeat throughout the film for this to be called anoir film.....there is no apparent "edgeiness" or element of despairwhich are classic components of film noir....MAIN POINT: this is notFilm Noir....I repeat, this is not Film Noir....if you are actuallyinterested in such, go rent "Out of the Past" or "The Killers" andlearn something....