KISS ME DEADLY

USA | 1955 | B&W | DCP | 106’ | ENGLISH
DIRECTOR: Robert Aldrich
SCREENWRITER: A.I. Bezzerides
DoP: Ernest Laszlo
MUSIC: Frank De Vol
EDITOR: Michael Luciano
PRINCIPAL CAST: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez

‘Kiss me Deadly’ starts off as an elaborate crime film, which culminates into a holocaust. Its leading man is a private eye with fascist tendencies looking for a much-coveted Pandora’s box filled with deadly secrets. On May 18th 1955, Robert Aldrich delivered this makeshift cinematic bomb, destined to explode on the very last minute, blowing up in the faces of unsuspecting viewers Mickey Spillane’s pulp pages, film noir, the cold-war nuclear hysteria of the day, the destruction of all political correctness and the most nihilistic worldview. Filmed in three weeks, at a very low cost and independently, the result was a brutal and unconventional film, inconceivable at the time and deservedly considered as one of the top, most modern of its kind. L.K.