346 - Killer's Kiss, United States, 1955. Dir. Stanley Kubrick.
Kubrick.
Stanley Kubrick is an American director. He was born in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx. This film, his second, is filmed in New York City--in Brooklyn, in the Bronx, and in Manhattan, including Pennsylvania Station and Times Square.
It is the story of two lonely, desperate young people who find each other, and lose each other, and try to find each other again. Of how they get caught up in a network of corruption and violence in their pursuit of the American dream and how they dream of finding redemption by moving to Seattle and starting all over again.
He is a boxer, a welterweight, struggling in the ring. He considers himself washed-up, a loser. He plans to go to his uncle and work at his uncle's horse ranch. She is the daughter of a tragic family, whose mother died in childbirth, whose father slowly wasted away, and whose sister Iris, a talented ballerina, gave up in suicide, and who herself, lacking her sister's grace and talent, has become a taxi-dancer on 49th and Broadway, dancing with men for a dime a dance, "in that depraved place, a human zoo." Her boss may as well be a pimp the way he treats her. He is part of some kind of a gang. Maybe money laundering. Maybe extortion. Maybe racketeering. Whatever it is, he treats her badly.
Killer's Kiss contains elements of American film noir. There are scenes with high-contrast lighting, deep darks penetrated by shafts of light--such as the flashback within a flashback of the hot spotlight hitting Iris in the black theater as she dances pointe alone on the stage; such as the silhouettes and shadows in the back alley as Vincent's goons trap Davey's manager and, thinking he is Davey, kill him. There are high and low camera angles--looking down the long steps leading up to the dance hall with reflections on the side walls, looking up from the ground in the dark alley--and other creative uses of the camera--Davey's reflection in the fishbowl, looking through multiple windows, looking back through mirrors. And there are memorable set pieces--the boxing ring, the walk down Broadway, the back alley, the chase up the fire escape, the rooftops, the freight elevator, and the climactic showdown in the mannequin warehouse.
This movie could not be more American.
And yet if you were to watch it without knowing its source, you may very well think you are watching a film born of the British New Wave.
You may think you are watching Tony Richardson rather than Stanley Kubrick.
You may think you are watching Albert Finney rather than Jamie Smith.
Times Square feels like Piccadilly Circus. (Partly because Kubrick shows us side views and never focuses on the point where Broadway and 7th Avenue come together at 45th Street.)
The streets of Brooklyn, Plymouth and Adams, are paved with cobblestones.
The clothing--high wader pants over white socks, single-breasted jackets, thin ties. The hairstyles.--his low-quiff pompadour, her swept bangs and slight side-feathering. The modes of acting--formal, theatrical. Long moments without an underlying score. The overdubbed dialogue sounds as if it is coming from outside the room and that sometimes does not match the lips. The heavy use of Foley effects--clopping of shoes on the pavement, the dropping of the pistol on the floor. The pistol itself, a Luger P08--which, granted, is German, but as such is noticeably not American. The grainy film stock. The modest sets. The economical style. All seem to make this film to this American feel not American. As if its director set out to make a British film.
There are moments in the kitchen that feel as if they could have come from Look Back in Anger. There are moments in the streets that seem as though they could have been from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
Does this style presage Kubrick's eventual move to England? I do not think so. I believe he may have been influenced by his budget and prevailing styles in the air at the time. Perhaps he was ahead of his time. Perhaps the British New Wave was influenced by him. This film came out four years before that movement came into its own.
There are hints of his greatness that was to come.
And there are moments that stand out.
But there are also missed opportunities. The climax in the mannequin warehouse is a fantastic concept. However, it is lit blandly; it is shot conventionally; it is choreographed uncreatively; and too much is left on the table. Why does Davey walk past the axe and not see the axe? Why does he stand and let Vincent see him? Why does Vincent stand and not react? Why does Davey walk past a mannequin head and not pick it up and throw it at Vincent's head? Why does he just stand there and let Vincent throw a torso at him? Why do we see the warehouse employee working in his shop, look up when he first hears them enter, and then never see him again? Why does everyone else disappear? Why are there scores of finely detailed mannequins that end up standing still as backdrop? Why not use them? Why not go through the middle of them? Why not push the camera through them? Why not use expressionistic lighting? Why not use more body parts as weapons? The action does intensify when Vincent has the axe and Davey has the spear hook, and some of their close calls make the heart race, but the actors could have been more fully trained and committed to a more hair-raising fight. Yes, of course the answer is budget, but come on. Effort and enthusiasm can overcome monetary limitations.
This is a film worth watching as a student of Kubrick, to learn where he was at this stage of his career, and to learn techniques from him. It has quite a few strong moments in it.
Just be careful about whom you get mixed up with.
It could be dangerous.
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