Film:
Kiss Me Deadly
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.
If you ask me why I like film noir as much as I do, I’m not sure I could give you an answer specifically. There are too many aspects of noir that work for me. I like the visual style of a good noir, and the use of light and shadow. I like the fact that films noir tend to be morally murky at best. I like the idea of the
femme fatale as a concept and often as a character. I like whipcrack dialogue and sudden bursts of unexpected violence. I like plots that are complex without being complicated. Naturally, I’ve watched a good deal of the noir on The List, but not quite all of it. I didn’t quite know what to expect from
Kiss Me Deadly except noir-y goodness. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m really not sure what I got.
We start as private detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) nearly runs down a woman named Christina (Cloris Leachman) on the road. It’s evident that she is wearing only her trenchcoat and she soon reveals that she has just escaped from an insane asylum. She tells Hammer to remember her if she doesn’t make it to her final destination. She doesn’t; we see her twitching legs and her her being tortured moments later while Hammer lies unconscious nearby. Hammer is put into a car with her body and pushed down a hill, but he survives the wreck and wakes up in a hospital.
