Classic noir or apocalyptic political thriller?

By Christopher P. Jacobs
Movies Editor

Director Robert Aldrich (1918-1983), who would have turned 93 this past Tuesday, is best-known for action films like “The Dirty Dozen” (1967), “The Longest Yard” (1974), and off-beat twisted thrillers like “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962) and “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (1965). He was an independent-minded filmmaker who worked his way up through the studio system, serving as assistant for such legends as Charles Chaplin, Jean Renoir, William Wellman, Robert Rossen, Lewis Milestone, Joseph Losey, Max Ophus, and more. Once he became a director himself in the early 1950s, however, he was never afraid of challenging Hollywood’s safe, conventional formulas by incorporating controversial social and political undercurrents to various degrees, as well as violating certain traditional taboos before the ratings system made such things more common.

Like most directors, his work ranged from outstanding to routine, and his films often had mixed reactions from audiences, critics, or both. A pair of mid-1950s Aldrich films came out separately on Blu-ray earlier this summer, the colorful Burt Lancaster/Gary Cooper western “Vera Cruz” (1954) and the dark crime thriller “Kiss Me Deadly” (1955). Each is entertaining in its own way. As both of them blend the popular styles and genres of their times with subject material and an approach a decade or more ahead of their times, they make for interesting viewing back-to-back.

Arguably Aldrich’s masterpiece, “Kiss Me Deadly” turns Mickey Spillane’s popular Mike Hammer detective novel into a combination gritty film noir and modern paranoid apocalyptic thriller. Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is driving down the highway at night and swerves to avoid hitting a girl wearing nothing but a trenchcoat (Cloris Leachman). She tells him to forget her if he drops her at the nearest bus station, but to remember her if they don’t make it there.

Soon after, they’re run off the road. She’s tortured and killed while he’s knocked unconscious by villains we can never quite see, and they’re both put back into his car which is then pushed over a cliff. Of course Hammer barely escapes and decides to investigate, against the wishes of the police, the FBI, and a bunch of other people. The mystery has international repercussions beyond simple criminal activity that Hammer, with the help of devoted secretary/lover Velda (Maxine Cooper), very gradually unravels as things become more and more dangerous for him and everyone he comes into contact with.

The screenplay by A. I. Bezzerides changes the “McGuffin” from drug dealing to atomic secrets, partly due to censorship concerns, partly to modernize the plot. It was also notorious for inverting Spillane’s brutal right-wing vigilante detective into a brutal self-absorbed nihilist who was supposedly as reprehensible as those he was up against, and ominously depicting the official forces of law and order as no better than either Hammer or his adversaries.

Although denounced for its violence even before it was released (based on the novel’s reputation and the script), most of the violence actually occurs off-screen. The film was either excoriated or ignored by mid-1950s American critics, but was lavishly praised as “the thriller of tomorrow” by the left-wing French critics who would soon form the French New Wave and became a cult arthouse hit.

Now over a half-century later, the film appears to have it both ways, playing upon both traditions and fears of its time while anticipating themes trendy two generations after its release. Thanks to effective directing and acting (though Gaby Rodgers as “Lily Carver” is a bit weak at times), it makes Hammer a more complex antihero than perhaps it intended. It incorporates the dangerous femme fatale common to noir films, but it also depicts a strong, independent-minded woman who is on the side of the protagonist (who may certainly have “issues” but is not unsympathetic). Reflecting McCarthyism and the Cold War, the government is depicted as both uncomfortably menacing yet worthy of respect.

The film today ironically fulfills the sociopolitical fears and expectations of both the left and the right and fits easily into modern concerns about international terrorism. Interestingly, Spillane disliked the film for many years because of its distortion of his novel, but later changed his mind and felt Meeker was the best of all the screen versions of Mike Hammer. The strong supporting cast includes Jack Elam, Jack Lambert, and others who also appeared in “Vera Cruz,” as well as a young Strother Martin and the ubiquitous Percy Helton.

Picture quality, as usual for Criterion Collection releases, is very good to excellent, mostly the latter, with a crisp, film-like 1.66:1 high-definition image that shows the fine grain of the film and the textural details of settings and costumes, along with rich deep blacks and bright whites. This is especially effective in the strikingly-shot noir night scenes. The original mono audio also is very good.

Bonus features are up to the Criterion standard, including a nice booklet with essays by J. Hoberman and Aldrich himself (cleverly designed in the style of a 1950s men’s magazine), a good audio commentary by noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini, featurettes about the film, its locations, and its screenwriter, and a documentary about Spillane. There’s also the original theatrical trailer (in HD) and an alternate shortened ending that was on the film for many of its TV showings until recently.

KISS ME DEADLY on Blu-ray:  Movie: A- / Video: A / Audio: A / Extras: A-

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