His lack of prejudice also adds a bit to his likeability. In contrast to this, Hammer frequents a black jazz club and pals around with Nick. He and Aldrich meant for the smirking, supercilious government officials who question Hammer to function as a critique of the Red Scare and the House Un-American Activities Committee’s scapegoating and overreach. And we begin to feel more sympathy towards Hammer as his powerlessness is revealed in the face of a deepening conspiracy.īezzerides was committed to portraying a multicultural Los Angeles as a contrast to the WASP American establishment. Although he is cruel in many scenes, we also see him feel real emotion for the people aligned with him who are hurt. Meeker does an excellent job of balancing charisma and vulnerability with the character’s negative aspects. Noir historian Alain Silver calls Hammer an “anti-Galahad”, a knight without virtue – his search for the mysterious box like a quest for the Holy Grail. The dilemma for the filmmakers is that the audience has to stick with Hammer as he navigates the plot despite his negative tendencies. He takes pleasure in inflicting pain on and exerting dominance over older, weaker men, and thinks nothing of hurting women. His most passionate feelings are reserved for his excitable Greek mechanic, Nick (Nick Dennis). As played by Meeker, he is almost a parody of ’50s macho masculinity, only interested in women for sex. Bezzerides had no interest in Spillane’s tough-guy theatrics instead, their aim was to expose Hammer’s cruel, fascistic tendencies. After a stay in the hospital and a visit to the Feds, Hammer is led on a quest through the underbelly of Los Angeles to find the men who killed her.Īldrich and screenwriter A.I. She asks Hammer to help her to go as a far as bus stop, but they are intercepted by mysterious men who torture and kill Christina and attempt to kill Hammer. The woman whom Hammer encounters on the highway in the opening sequence is Christina (Cloris Leachman), who has escaped from a sanatorium. The film takes its name and characters from a Mickey Spillane thriller novel featuring the hard-boiled detective Mike Hammer (played here by Ralph Meeker), but drastically alters its setting and major plot points. Often considered to be at the end of the classic-period film noir cycle, Kiss Me Deadly begins to twist noir conventions to suit the new concerns and fears of the 1950s, with Aldrich presenting a caustic, despairing image of America and its future.
Thus we are flung into the labyrinth of Robert Aldrich’s unforgettable Kiss Me Deadly (1955).
Unexpectedly, he picks her up – then cut to credits, in reverse scroll. A man in a speeding sports car careens toward her: a near collision. A panting woman hurtles down a highway, wearing only a trenchcoat.
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