Killer's Kiss (1955)

Kubrick's very worst

Kubrick's second feature film is a clumsy, ugly, nauseatingly dull crime drama in the vein of my grandmother's house during Thanksgiving. Highlights of this longest hour of my life include wooden performances, terrible editing and a story that literally has more exposition than actual plot. As most Kubrick enthusiasts know, "Fear and Desire" was pulled from circulation because Kubrick was so dissatisfied by it. I wish that he'd followed suit with this pile of bore. I'm amazed that the great filmmaker who created so many extraordinary, innovative motion pictures directed this at the start of his bizarre career.

This film is only notable for the penultimate scene, which features one of the single worst fight sequences that I've ever seen in a movie.

The theatrical tagline for this movie was: "Her Soft Mouth Was the Road to Sin-Smeared Violence!" Gross! September 1, 2007

The first-class suspense film that foreshadowed conscious and technique...,

In 1955 a young man, who had produced a couple of 35mm. shorts and a feature which were so little known that they were never even shown in England, made a suspense thriller... From the fact that he co-produced it, wrote it, directed it and did the photography and editing himself you may deduce that he had more talent than backing... The movie was called "Killer's Kiss," and the multi-talented man who made it was the young Stanley Kubrick...

"Killer's Kiss" is a fascinating movie to look back as it is a notable thriller in its own right... It is a film about lonely people; alone people, which is not quite the same thing; their roots almost severed from a past which was once good and is now lost; solitary in the impartial big city at the end of the line...

It starts with a confident, quiet slowness that few directors would dare in the frenetic Seventies... It takes its time to develop, and for nearly half the film you can't guess what the plot is going to be... But this carefully measured film gives you a deep feeling for the characters and their context that leaves you, even after all the suspense, with an overwhelming feeling of the humanity of the movie...

The narrator, Davy Gordon (Jamie Smith) is a young and fading boxer, past it, but not defeated in his heart... The girl Gloria Price (Irene Kane), who lives in the same apartment block, has, like him, no family nor friends... She's come down to working as a dance partner in a shabby hall run by a baddie called Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera).

Kubrick slowly, and movingly, shows the two principals taking the downgrade: Davy fighting a losing bout in the ring while Gloria is trying to push off some heavy passes from Rapallo...

Even he, Rapallo, is made human, understandable... When he stands in his shadowed office, making up his mind to some malice, his eyes fall on cozy family photographs in nice domestic frames that he takes the trouble to keep there; and, when his mind is made up, he gestures irritably, guiltily, as if knowing he's letting them down and trying weakly to dismiss summarily aside their silent reproaches...

The whole story is condensed into three days... Yet it seems to have the natural, inevitable pace of real life; and the moments briefly taken out for little touches of New York street scenes add to the reality and place it in a context of truth...

Very little violence is actually shown except in Davy's boxing match which, in just a few minutes, gives a better feeling than most movies of what it's like to lose a fight in the ring... But, in spite of all, you're on the edge of your seat and you're glad to be there...

There is a classic chase over the rooftops, but even here there are human touches that kill cliché... These villains are not supermen, any more than Davy is: they can stumble on a fire escape, and not for laughs; one of them can fall as you or I would fall and drop out with a twisted ankle...

The suspense is not lessened by these touches: it is increased, because it is more real, seems less contrived...

"Killer's Kiss" was a first-class suspense film that foreshadowed conscious and technique that Kubrick was to take to the limit in later years... And, after all, the ending was fair enough for the Fifties... In the Seventies, Gloria would probably have got raped by the railway porter, and there'd have been a lot of unlovely detail and no suspense at all...

January 4, 2007

Striking cult movie!

The Noir film in the fifties reached its absolute expansion and sheer maturity, dealing with all sort of tragic experiences, the loser gambler, the renegade kid, the abominable fear of the atomic treatment, the counterspies, the antihero raising, or the most intimate prototypes of the last page of the newspapers. Indeed, a whole generation accustomed to fabulous examples of the genre demanded major inventiveness and lurked in the intimacy of the dark projection halls. It would be said that any serious filmmaker should to make his incursion in the genre; from Orson Welles (Mr. Arkadin and Touch of evil), Hitchcock ( Strangers on a train), John Huston ( Asphalt jungle), or names we used to associate with other genres such as Anthony Mann, renowned directors such Robert Wise (The set up), Fritz Lang ( The big heat) Elia Kazan (Panic in the streets), Billy Wilder (Sunset boulevard), Edward Dymtrik (The street with no name and The sniper) threw their respective hats in the arena. But the emerging figure of a genius in progress as Stanley Kubrick who just opened his enormous wings, immediately captured the attention around him.

Killer's kiss was Stanley Kubrick's second feature film that, although its low budget, achieved a distinguished acknowledgement at the most unexpected levels, due among other details its ambitious display of visual unity, of harrowing sequences as Davy's manager murder in hands of the members of the Rapallo' s clan where the visual devices remind us to the Third man, the amazing chase throughout the roofs of the buildings, the ironical gaze around Manhattan's fantasies as well as suggestive elements that implies seduction, and violence.

Another remarkable factors to take into account are the handle of the inner tension of the characters, the employment of the time as metaphysical device, the existential uncertainness of our loser boxer, lonely and hopeless that is corresponded absolutely by his girlfriend Gloria, a dancer of a dark nightclub and the final sequence where the use of female mannequins are employed as defensive weapons in the hair raising fistfight.
December 24, 2006

The Genius of a Young Stanley Kubrick

Killer's Kiss is a 1955 movie produced, directed and written by a 27 year old Stanley Kubrick. Coming off the heels of a poorly recieved first effort, 1953's Fear and Desire, Kubrick stormed back with an interesting little story set in the heart of New York City. The film's protagonist Davy Gordon, is a struggling local boxer who gets involved with a woman, Gloria Price who's ex, Vincent Rapallo hasn't let go of her yet. Kubrick slowly, and movingly, shows the two principals taking the downgrade: Davy fighting a losing bout in the ring while Gloria is trying to push off some heavy passes from Rapallo.

While the pair try to flee the city, Rapallo and his henchmen foil there escape. Price meanwhile, has changed her mind and decides she's better off with a real man, Rapallo. In the thrilling climax, Gordon and Rapallo battle it out in a run-down mannequin factory which foreshadows his technique shown in later masterpieces. In the end, Gordon finally takes Rapallo out, and runs off to catch his train. In an un-kubrick like way, as Gordon is about to step onto the train and off to Anywhere, USA, Gloria comes back, and re-joins him on there quest for happiness together.

"Killer's Kiss" was a first-class suspense film that foreshadowed conscious and technique that Kubrick was to take to the limit in later years. After all, the ending was fair enough for the Fifties. Out of a possible 5 stars, I give young Stanley Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss" 4 stars.

February 24, 2006

Many, many interesting aspects

This is an heroic film; with very little budget, Kubrick delivers so many interesting and innovative things. It might be very rare that something like the electrifying box combat was filmed before or after. A veritable photographic "tour de force"! The sequence of the ballet dancer is quite something as well. The history, quite short according to the limited time of the film, is nevertheless vivid. Atention to detail and great photography creates environments very efectively, like the dance club, the evening in downtown, the modest appartments, and the noticeable upward shots in the railway station. November 1, 2005

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