Directed by:
Stanley KubrickScreenplay:
Stanley KubrickCinematography:
Stanley KubrickComposer:
Gerald FriedVOD (2)
Plots(1)
Down-and-out New York City boxer Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) strikes up a romance with nightclub dancer Gloria Price (Irene Kane). Their budding relationship is violently interrupted by Gloria’s boss, Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera), who has eyes for his employee. When Vincent and his thugs abduct Gloria, Davey is forced to search for her among the most squalid corners of the city, with his enemy hiding in the shadows. Killer’s Kiss provides a fascinating look into the early work of a man who would soon become one of the world’s most important and influential filmmakers, and it’s a remarkable achievement in its own right: the boxing match may be the most vicious this side of Raging Bull, and the famed final battle remains an action tour-de-force. (Kino Lorber)
(more)Reviews (5)
Killer’s Kiss is a decently written and directed drama, but the acting is mediocre. Don’t be put off by the slower first half with an overabundance of flashbacks, because the second half comes out swinging!
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A nice noir. In the first, and more boring half you can at least enjoy the composition of the images and the way they play with light, darkness and shadow, while the second half is very tense and fun. It’s not a masterpiece (though there are a couple of scenes that show hints thereof, besides the oft-mentioned box and axe, I would point out to the attack in an alley), but it’s still a very decent thriller.
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It lasts just a little over an hour, but even so, it’s too long. After the first forty minutes of badly acted boredom, we get just twenty minutes of solid tension. And Kubrick’s movie suffers from the same problem that harms his subsequent offering: inappropriate music, especially that squeaky march in the finale.
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A shorter formal warm-up before The Killing, where Stanley's talent for the right composition of scenes and the story as a whole is already evident. Unfortunately, it’s not very good and, despite the optimal runtime, it lacks the expected noir tone and charge in the first two acts. Fortunately, though, the genius filmmaker tries some new camera tricks and stages most of the shots in such a way that they are simply fun to watch. And the last twenty minutes are a genre parade, although the similarly positive ending isn't exactly why I've come to love classic film-noir so much. A better 3*
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The musical aspect of the film is definitely not its strongest suit, but this, along with the performances, is something Kubrick could be proud of. It's not an amateurish film; you can tell there was a sense of attention to detail, evident from the opening boxing match, which Kubrick had previously filmed in real life for his documentary Day of the Fight. What he tremendously succeeded at, even as a screenwriter, is the storytelling, which is essentially flashback-driven. This is a film that pays homage to storytelling. The film still carries a certain rawness - that's how I would describe the work with amateur actors, or rather non-actors - but the sophisticated story and its gradual unfolding overshadow this, to its benefit. Stanley also handled the camera work himself (for example, the attack on Albert in the alley has beautiful character highlighting). Stanley Kubrick is a master director, and with this first fully preserved film that he did not try to destroy himself, he proved it. Film noir is definitely not one of the easiest genres to make films in.
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