Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

hwg1957-102-265704 Based on a Mickey Spillane novel a private detective Mike Hammer picks up a girl on the highway which leads him into danger and murder. It is a B movie but a better made B movie than some and although claims have been made for its political and social resonances it is really a film that enjoys more the violence and sex of pulp fiction. Ralph Meeker is a stolid and dull Mike Hammer and it gets rather hilarious when several over heated young women come on to him all the time. There are some good actors like Albert Dekker, Juano Hernandez, Paul Stewart, Jack Lambert, Jack Elam and Cloris Leachman but they don't have much to do. Wesley Addy as Lt. Pat Murphy comes off the best. , Director Robert Aldrich made several very much better films. One wonders what attracted him to this Spillane pot-boiler. There are a few good scenes but am not sure it is the classic with which it has been labelled.The best thing is the location photography around Los Angeles. You do get a real feeling for the city.

avik-basu1889 'Kiss Me Deadly' is a film that gets frequently talked about as one of the great noir films from the final phase of the golden age of American Noir cinema. Directed by Robert Aldrich, the film's screenplay written by A.I. Bezzerides is based on the novel of the same name by Mickey Spillane.Although there isn't much that I loved about it, but I'll start with what I liked about the film. I think Aldrich's direction in a number of the scenes is assured. His visual style and vision is well complemented and brought to life by Ernest Laszlo's cinematography. There are examples of a few long takes like the scene in the boxing gym where Mike Hammer walks in and has a long conversation with the owner of the place and the whole drawn out conversation gets captured in one take. There is also another scene where we get overhead shots of a stairway from different angles and it really makes the stairway look ominous.But unfortunately, the things that I didn't like about the film outweigh what I liked quite heavily. First of all the script itself did not hook me at all. I have heard that a lot of changes were made while adapting Spillane's novel by Bezzerides. But the whole script came across as bland, dull and not interesting at all. We are asked to follow Mike Hammer on a series of encounters with various characters as he tries to find out who attacked him and the woman that he picked up on the road at the beginning of the film. Yes the film does have an ominous tone and cynical edge to it. But for me it doesn't amount to much. I have heard of theories where the ominous and cynical tone of the film has been connected to a Cold War subtext. That could be possible, but I personally didn't find proper depth in the fimmaking and screenplay to catch any sort of profundity. The character of Mike Hammer himself is as unlike-able as it gets. I don't think Ralph Meeker has the Bogart-esque charm to pull off being a shady private investigator and still make us care. We follow him on countless encounters as he repeatedly goes into fits of rage and starts punching anyone and everyone that he can find. Additionally every woman in the vicinity literally throws herself at Mike and at times forcibly kisses him. The punching and the relentless kissing with different women gets laughable after a point. So, in a nutshell the film is taking some of the objectionable aspects of the noir films of the era like the uncontrolled and senseless 'machismo' triggered violence and the misogyny and cranks these elements up to 11. Now some might say that the film is having fun by exploiting the clichés of the genre, but I didn't pick up that self-awareness because the film takes itself very seriously and to me, this forced seriousness damages the film.Unfortunately this was not a good viewing experience for me. Maybe I expected a different kind of movie and got something else. But to be honest, I think save for some of Aldrich's visual flair, 'Kiss Me Deadly' is barely anything more than a B-Movie. Not Recommended.

FilmAlicia Note: This review contains significant SPOILERS. As I was watching for "Kiss Me Deadly" today for the first time, I thought, this is the movie that inspired the look and feel of "Chinatown" more than any other. I even felt that Meeker's matter-of-fact performance as Mike Hammer may have inspired the creation of Jake Gittes, and influenced Nicholson's performance. How about that scene with a very young Strother Martin? I had to go back and watch the film a couple of more times before I realized that's who was playing the truck driver who accidentally ran down one of the victims. The film came out 60 years ago, but it does feel very modern. Some absurdities such as the fact that Christina was able to conceal the key while she was in the mental hospital, since she probably would have been unable to carry it in her stomach for that long without her body getting rid of it in the usual manner. Also, when Mike Hammer went to the morgue to look at Christina's body, it had theoretically been weeks since her death (per Lt. Murphy, in the hospital room scene at the film's beginning) yet Christina's face still looked pretty much as it had when she was alive. Not that it matters, but, did we ever find out how Christina got involved in the plot (the plot within the film, not the film's plot) to begin with? And, of course, what was the nature of what was "in the box" which was so unstable that it caused a nuclear explosion when opened, but could be hauled around in just a metal container and outer case which appeared to be leather, not lead?Ralph Meeker looked like Pat Boone, a bit, but he sure didn't act like him. He was quite a compelling anti-hero, but he met his match in Maxine Cooper, as Velda. I couldn't take my eyes off her during her scenes, and loved her dialogue, especially her references to "the great Whatsit."Cloris Leachman, 60 years ago, was feisty and charming in her brief role. Gaby Rogers, as Lily Carver, came across as a strange and campy presence in the film, but it was that very unreality that made her memorable. We didn't need to see Albert Dekker's face at all, because he did most of his acting with his detached and not-quite-human voice, like the great radio announcer in the sky. An altogether weird, offbeat, and striking film noir, an obvious inspiration to other directors and to many other films, and a film that every noir buff should see. Regarding the film's meaning, I'll leave that for another time. These are just first impressions.

krocheav When my Grandfather took me to see this as a kid, neither of us were ready for what came along. It remained in my memory for many of the wrong reasons...namely, cheap shocks, and horror. The ending burnt itself into my nightmares for some years. Looking back with a trained eye and mature mind, it comes across the way many critics of its day quite rightly described it...as tawdry. Some critics have lately given it more attention than it deserves. It appears perhaps many folk who grew up with 50s-70s TV, may not have such a high expectation in the writing or production quality stakes, as they seem to be more easily pleased. The opening, while an immediate attention grabber, somehow has the look of a reasonable home movie. This look continues with a scene in Hammer's trendy apartment, where the full shape of the camera can be seen in shadow on his body, it then tracks with him and becomes even more painfully obvious as it ends up filling the floor space after he moves out of frame. This is an instant mood killer for the serious film lover. Any director worth his salt would have picked it up and re-shot it. But this is a quickie, wrapped up in around three weeks, and it shows. Hungarian born Director of Photography: Ernest Laszlo (Naked Jungle '56 ~ Stalag 17 '53) who went on to be nominated for better work, must have cringed when he saw the rushes! And while I quite liked director Robert Aldrich's "The Big Knife" in the same year, I think it was carried by Clifford Odet's penetrating story. Aldrich seemed more interested in being controversial than creative. Writer: Micky Spillane, when he saw the completed film, described it as one of the worst films he'd seen. He actually walked out the first time, then tried again, with no improvement. He cited A.I. Bezzerides screen play as little more than junk, turning his Mike Hammer character into no more than a sadistic thug. Bezzerides had achieved better when working with Jules Dassin on "Thieves Highway" in '49.I don't think Ralph Meeker's career was helped along by this film. Aldrich's soul-less direction left his Mike Hammer character quite bland, lifeless. Apart from one or two interesting roles, Meeker unfortunately languished in the background. An unusual early film (just about forgotten now) from MGM "Glory Alley" '52 showed some mild promise, and in the superb "Paths of Glory" in '57, he was even better - but these were not well followed up. Paul Stewart is good, so is Juano Hernandez in a small part. But Nick Dennis as Nick Va Va Voom (believe it or not!) is simply annoying to the extreme. Albert Dekker who's given somewhat prominent billing, is nothing more than a guest star, with only a few minutes screen time --an Aldrich audience con-- The girls are all reduced to cheap throw away sex objects, and none, save Cloris Leachman (with only a few minutes on screen) are very convincing.Frank Devol's music score is basically hammy, with embarrassing jabs and stings to herald any supposed drama. Devol excelled at jovial or melodic scores for TV sit com's, but regardless, Aldrich often used him for drama. Along with the somewhat slimy Wesley Addy as Lt Murphy, and Albert Dekker, I think many roles were simply 'jobs for the boys'.For those who like cheap 'B' grade 'wannabe' noirs, or sadism masquerading as entertainment...(the scene where Hammer jams Percy Helton's fingers in a drawer, while snickering with delight at his screams of agony, is sadistically obvious, and unintentionally funny at the same time)...then this movie won't disappoint you. Others might need to beware. As for "that ending" while it filled me with fear as a kid - with its curious container, filled with ultra radiant molten nuclear death, locked only by a simple key, that when opened...(complete with the sound of howling demons) explodes like a nuclear bomb! This type of blast would more likely have taken out an entire section of the coastline, not just the holiday beach house! It's little wonder then, that some intelligent editor removed from the original cinema release prints, those somewhat foolish shots of an already radiated Hammer and his muse - hiding from this massive blast in ankle deep water. This apparently unknown editor, did this by cutting directly from the blast, to the end title. BUT then...along comes some enthusiastic DVD researcher, finds the cuts, and puts them back in. Just the ticket for a modern audience...Goodbye Mr.Hammer!