Kiss Me Deadly

Based on Mickey Spillane's hugely successful pulp novel, Robert Aldrich's 1955 adaptation turns the story of a private eye on the deadly trail of a prize into one of the greatest film noirs of all time. Here, private detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is a brutally amoral opportunist in an era of Cold War paranoia, and the “great whatsit” (as the film's MacGuffin is referred to) leaves its mark on everyone who gets near it. The plot kicks off when Hammer picks up a hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman) who is wearing nothing but a raincoat—they wind up abducted, after which she's tortured and killed, but Hammer manages to escape. Launching an investigation, Hammer is helped by sidekicks Velda (Maxine Cooper) and Nick (Nick Dennis), but the ultimate answer to the secret introduced at the onset winds up being less important than the means employed to uncover it. This blast of tawdry, crime-movie cynicism for the atomic age satirizes Spillane's hardboiled mythos with its bare-knuckle brutality, purple-prose dialogue, and exaggerated chauvinism. Although not explicit, the film's violence and sexuality created a sensation at the time and still shock today. Criterion presents the newly remastered Kiss Me Deadly in its original form (with missing footage restored from the climactic scene) for this DVD re-release and Blu-ray debut. Extras include audio commentary by film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini, a video tribute by director Alex Cox, excerpts from documentaries on screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides and Spillane, a video tour of the film's locations, and a booklet. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)