Killer's Kiss (1955)

Director:

Stanley Kubrick

Writer:

Stanley Kubrick (story)

Release Date:

1 October 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

Tagline:

Her Soft Mouth Was the Road to Sin-Smeared Violence!

Plot:

As a man waits at a train station for his girl, he tells us about the recent past and we segue into a long flashback.

Plot Keywords:

Train Station | Dancer | Flashback Sequence | Director Also Cinematographer | Police

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Frank Silvera	...	Vincent Rapallo
Jamie Smith	...	Davey Gordon
Irene Kane	...	Gloria Price
Jerry Jarrett	...	Albert (the fight manager)
Mike Dana	...	Gangster
Felice Orlandi	...	Gangster
Shaun O'Brien
Barbara Brand
Skippy Adelman	...	Mannequin factory owner (as Julius Adelman)
David Vaughan	...	Conventioneer
Alec Rubin	...	Conventioneer
Ralph Roberts	...	Gangster
Phil Stevenson	...	Gangster
Arthur Feldman
Bill Funaro

Also Known As:

Kiss Me, Kill Me (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

67 min | Japan:43 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Spain:T | Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | Iceland:L | Finland:K-16 | Netherlands:12 | Brazil:12 | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | UK:12 | USA:Unrated | West Germany:12 (re-rating) (2003) | Germany:18 | UK:A

Filming Locations:

Dumbo, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Minotaur Productions

Trivia:

To shoot the scene in which the fight manager is murdered in an East Side alley, Stanley Kubrick had to first negotiate with five transients who had set up a makeshift home in the alley and were unwilling to relinquish their turf.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: When Dave is reading the letter on the subway, the narration of the letter obviously very different from what is written on the page.

Quotes:

Davy Gordon: It's crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense-and yet not be able to think about anything else. You get so you're no good for anything or anybody. Maybe it begins by taking life too serious. Anyway, I think that's the way it began for me. Just before my fight with Rodriguez three days ago...

Movie Connections:

References La regina di Saba (1952)

Urban loneliness

Note- these edited comments are based on the new Killer's Kiss DVD. The TCM television print does no justice to the film's cinematography and sound design.

A director's first film is usually how he sees himself. With his first feature, "Fear and Desire", Kubrick clearly saw himself as a serious, intellectual film-maker. He styled himself after the classical Russian masters (albeit a modernist) who only dared tackle the most weighty and serious of subjects. But of course that film bombed and Kubrick felt very embarrassed with his "pretentious little war film".

There's nothing hugely wrong with "Fear and Desire". It's simply too big a film to come from someone, who was at the time, so small and inexperienced. As such, it felt wrong for audiences. It felt pretentious and arty because it wasn't perceived as coming from an established, validated artist. Of course in hindsight, things look differently.

Kubrick always knew exactly what kind of films he wanted to make. And he knew, from an early age, that he was capable of doing so. But he needed to prove himself to others first. He needed to work his way up the ladder, gradually gaining the kind of clout and technical talent needed to make such a picture work.

So he goes back to the drawing board and quickly writes (it took 2 weeks) a trashy exploitation flick. Gone are the allegorical narratives, the metaphors and the little flairs of expressionism. This is straight up guerrilla film-making. It's cinéma vérité, as close to documentary as a narrative film can get.

Kubrick gives us gritty street scenes, lots of rough dialogue, stolen shots of Time Square and edgy scenes hastily shot on real life locations and populated sidewalks. As a whole, the film feels very similar in mood to Scorsese's "Mean Streets". Kubrick gives us little shots of wet pavements, street dancers, vendors, posters and flyers blowing in the wind. He creates a superb sense of place and a lot of the close-up shots of billboards and posters reminded me strongly of Scorsese's "Raging Bull".

Throughout the film, the cinematography is brilliant. The lighting and compositions are stark yet beautiful, and the New York cityscape is captured as I've never seen before. We've seen 1950's New York in countless film noirs, but never has it felt so beautiful, so real, yet so harsh and lonely. The new DVD transfer really does do the cinematography justice.

There are some other Kubrick touches as well. Kubrick's compositions emphasise the notion of the noir "cage." He pans us around a boxer's room as if saying "this is his prison". He then frames the poor guy in a giant fishbowl to emphasise the entrapment. Whether it be a boxing ring, a window, a room or a door frame, Kubrick constantly has his "hero" in a visual trap.

Through the boxer's window, in a scene reminiscent of Hitchcock, lies another window in which a woman lives. Kubrick shows the audience her cage as well, and will spend the rest of the film carefully inter-cutting the rituals of both boxer and woman. For example, his fights are inter-cut with her fights, his job is inter-cut with her job, his preparations are inter-cut with her preparations.

In his first film (Fear and Desire), Kubrick hid in the forests and worked privately in a secluded environment. This is how he'd work from Dr Strangelove onwards. Secluded environments over which he had total control.

But with "Killers Kiss", Kubrick forced himself to go naked. He played against all his instincts. Gone are all the narrative tricks, the metaphors and pretentious stylings. In their place is straight-up commercial storytelling. Romance, violence and lots of grit.

I was surprised how much more I enjoyed "Killer's Kiss" upon second viewing. It has several memorable scenes, a nice sense of urban loneliness and the cinematography is brilliant throughout. Kubrick puts you in 1950's New York. You can smell the smog and taste the concrete. The structure of the film is also interesting. It's told in a series of flashbacks within flashbacks, the story unfolding as the narrator takes us through his thoughts. Even here, early in his career, Kubrick had a disdain for standard narrative.

8/10 - I give this film an extra point for accomplishing so much with such a tiny budget. It's better than Chris Nolan's "Following" and Afronosky's "Pi", two other black and white "noirs" made under similar conditions.

Some nice documentary-like visuals and some stark action sequences make up for a simple but affecting script. The use of music and ambient sound is brilliant. A very good film, undeservedly suppressed by Kubrick. Note the dream sequence which foreshadows the Stargate sequence in 2001 and numerous other Kubrickian corridor shots.