028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States; Dir. Robert Aldrich.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States. Dir. Robert Aldrich.

A young woman walks down the middle of the highway in the middle of the night.

She is barefoot and wearing only a trenchcoat.

She appears to be in great distress.

A man speeds down the highway in his speedster in the middle of the night.

He is in a hurry and does not wish to be detained.

The woman stands in front of him.

He sees her in his headlights.

She will not budge.

At the last moment, he must swerve to avoid her.

He stops violently on the side of the road in the brush.

She approaches the car.

He is agitated.  He does not wish to pick up a strange woman, even one naked under her trenchcoat.  He wishes to be left alone.

But he lets her in.  And they drive.

Down the long, dark, two-lane highway in the middle of the night.

The credits begin to scroll.  From top to bottom.  Reversed.  Widening as they come down the screen.

Like white signs painted on the road.  Growing larger as they approach.

This is film noir.

Dark.  Violent.  Hard-boiled.  Hard-bitten.  Cold.

In 1955 two French film critics (Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton) wrote an essay entitled "Towards a Definition of Film Noir."  It is one of the few pieces written about film noir, and calling it film noir, while film noir was still being made.  Most commentary came afterwards, looking back.  So having anything written about it contemporaneously is important.

In their essay they describe the impact of American films that came to France in the summer of 1946.  During World War 2 France did not have access to American films, so when the war was over and they received them, it was like a revelation.

Before the war, they knew American films in the vein of William Wyler, John Ford, and Frank Capra.  After the war, they saw "a strange and violent tone, tinged with a unique kind of eroticism."  It was as if everything had changed overnight.

The critics list the following films that came to them in a 6-week period:

John Huston's The Maltese Falcon
Otto Preminger's Laura
Edward Dmytryk's Murder My Sweet
Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity
Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window

A few months' later, the following films came to them:

Frank Tuttle's This Gun for Hire
Robert Siodmak's The Killer's
Robert Montgomery's The Lady in the Lake
Charles Vidor's Gilda
Howard Hawk's The Big Sleep

"A new 'series' had emerged in the history of film."

Notice that every film they list is by a different director.  The films also represent all the studios.

This new phenomenon was so new, so sudden, and so wide-sweeping, that it caught the world by surprise.

And it is still being talked about.

The film noir period lasted for about twenty years, essentially during the 1940s and 1950s, and then it went away.

Every once in awhile someone will make one again, and it will be referred to as neo noir, but as a movement it is contained in this particular time in history.  People are still trying to understand it.  And people are still watching these movies.

The films in this canon are some of the most exciting, thrilling, tension-filled movies ever made.  They deal with the dark side of human nature, but also with nobility, and they are visually, sometimes breathtakingly, beautiful to behold.

This film, Kiss Me Deadly, was directed by Robert Aldrich.  Robert Aldrich is known for films such as The Big Knife (1955), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Longest Yard (1974), and The Frisco Kid (1979).  In 1956, Aldrich was photographed on set holding a copy of a book in his hands entitled Panorama du Film Noir.  That early.  He was onto something.

The driver of our car is Mike Hammer, the hero of a series of books written by Mickey Spillane.

Spillane worked in a genre of novels we call hard-boiled detective fiction.  Others include the characters Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler and Sam Spade by Dashiell Hammett,

These men were tough, no-nonsense, men of action.  Women wanted them.  Men wanted to be them.

They took the law into their own hands.  They operated by their own code.  Sometimes they were modern-day knights.  Sometimes they were as lost as the criminals they were fighting.

As Mike Hammer drives our mysterious woman, played by a young Cloris Leachman, she tells him that they are after her.  Who?  They.  And they are after something.  What?  Something.  Later we will call it the Whatsit.

She tells him, "If I happen to make it alive, forget me.  But if I don't make it, remember me."

What does that mean?

Maybe our poet Christina Roessetti can help us.  Remember?

She does not make it.

Someone pulls out in front of them and causes them to crash.

He wakes up tied up somewhere and witnesses them torturing her.

He passes out again.  They push the car over a cliff with the two of them in it.

He wakes up in the hospital room.

What happened?

Who are they?

What is the Whatsit?

He thinks it must be something big.  He cannot leave it alone.  He must get involved.

His police lieutenant friend takes away his detective license and his gun permit.  He is not allowed to get involved.

Do you think that will stop him?

Mike sticks his nose where it does not belong.

And he gets into trouble.

And he goes throughout our city to do it.

Our city.

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula.

Los Angeles.

The home of hardboiled detective fiction.  The home of crime dramas.  The home of the movies.  The home of film noir.

If you know the city, then you will have a feast watching this film.  It is a practical tour of the town.

Malibu Canyon, Kaiser Hospital, Olive Street, Flower Street, 10401 Wilshire Boulevard, Rampart, Bunker Hill, Doheny, Cahuenga, Angel's Flight (operating!), Figueroa, the Hollywood Athletic Club, Sunset Blvd.

Yes, Sunset Blvd.

Some things just keep coming back.

Again.

And again.

How many girls will he kiss?  How many girls will die?  How many men will die?  Will he himself die?

The plots in these films are often complicated.  The characters are often complex.  And there are often lots of characters.

They are puzzles to solve.  Sometimes they end unsolved.

These are intelligent films for intelligent people.  Disguised as B pictures.  Cheap thrillers.  Pulp fiction.

They tell the truth about the human condition.

Depravity.  Evil.  Original sin.

There is no one good.  No, not one.

And in the end . . .

They entertain.

This one is explosive.

Keep away from the windows.

Someone might blow you a kiss.