Kiss Me Deadly Movie Review

Director Robert Aldrich's adaptation of Mickey Spillane's private eye tale takes pulp literature high concept. Ralph Meeker, as Mike Hammer, is a self-interested, rough and tumble all American dick (detective, that is). When a woman to whom he happened to give a ride is found murdered, he follows the mystery straight into a nuclear conspiracy. Aldrich, with tongue deftly in cheek, styles a message through the medium; topsy turvy camerawork and rat-a-tat-tat pacing tell volumes about Hammer, the world he orbits, and that special ‘50s kind of paranoia. Now a cult fave, it's considered to be the American grandaddy to French New Wave. Cinematography by Ernest Laszlo.

1955 105m/B Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Wesley Addy, Cloris Leachman, Strother Martin, Marjorie Bennett, Jack Elam; D: Robert Aldrich; C: Ernest Laszlo. VHS, Beta, LV MGM, FCT