Stars: Ralph Meeker, Nick Dennis, Maxine Cooper, Cloris Leachman, Gaby Rodgers | Written by A.I. Bezzerides | Directed by Robert Aldritch
Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is driving down the freeway, minding his own business, when he almost hits a woman. Mike is a private investigator, and he knows trouble when he sees it, but he can’t just leave her in the road. His decision to stop and help triggers a confrontation with a group of thugs. When he comes around, the lady is dead – and Mike wants to know what the hell just happened.
With the help of his assistant and lover, Velda (Maxine Cooper), Mike takes a deep dive into the L.A. underworld. Scouring the backstreets, bars and boxing clubs, he uncovers a web of intrigue and violence, involving all the usual men of power, i.e. gangsters and cops. Countless bodies are left in the wake of his...
Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is driving down the freeway, minding his own business, when he almost hits a woman. Mike is a private investigator, and he knows trouble when he sees it, but he can’t just leave her in the road. His decision to stop and help triggers a confrontation with a group of thugs. When he comes around, the lady is dead – and Mike wants to know what the hell just happened.
With the help of his assistant and lover, Velda (Maxine Cooper), Mike takes a deep dive into the L.A. underworld. Scouring the backstreets, bars and boxing clubs, he uncovers a web of intrigue and violence, involving all the usual men of power, i.e. gangsters and cops. Countless bodies are left in the wake of his...
- 8/15/2019
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
Blue Velvet has plenty of the makings of noir: a sultry and dangerous atmosphere, big city fear, femme fatale (Dorothy Vallens/Isabella Rossellini), an intrepid detective working outside the police force (Jeffrey Beaumont/Kyle MacLachlan), and, of course, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a psychopath akin to the best of late-period classic American noirs.
By stirring the pot a bit Lynch moves these ingredients closer to something like revisionist noir or satire. The detective and his love interest Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) are more characters from a Nicholas Ray or John Hughes film than anything hard-boiled; the color scheme pushes the pastel-suburbs so far from the darkly saturated nighttime city as to be nearly comical that the two coexist; even Hopper’s Booth takes the psycho-sexual penchants of the worst of Richard Widmark or Ralph Meeker to new extremes.
Blue Velvet’s centerpiece trope is The Slow Club, a dim, sensual...
By stirring the pot a bit Lynch moves these ingredients closer to something like revisionist noir or satire. The detective and his love interest Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) are more characters from a Nicholas Ray or John Hughes film than anything hard-boiled; the color scheme pushes the pastel-suburbs so far from the darkly saturated nighttime city as to be nearly comical that the two coexist; even Hopper’s Booth takes the psycho-sexual penchants of the worst of Richard Widmark or Ralph Meeker to new extremes.
Blue Velvet’s centerpiece trope is The Slow Club, a dim, sensual...
- 3/14/2013
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
Kiss Me Deadly
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Written by A.I. Bezzerides
U.S.A., 1955
Fear and danger frequently go hand in hand all to easily, be it in the world of the movies or in real life, the latter which serves a superb inspiration on the former as many already know. One person can be fearful of what danger lurks about. Fear can cause them to behave dangerously. Their dangerous behaviour can cause fear in others. Both the fear and the danger can be the offspring of yet another factor that commonly complicates matters: the unknown. Man’s fear might emerge from a physical thing he fails to comprehend, or it can also explode out of a situation which is beyond his simply control, for which he has no answer, to ripost. Kiss Me Deadly, from 1955, arrived on the silver screen just as the Cold War was, figuratively speaking, heating up,...
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Written by A.I. Bezzerides
U.S.A., 1955
Fear and danger frequently go hand in hand all to easily, be it in the world of the movies or in real life, the latter which serves a superb inspiration on the former as many already know. One person can be fearful of what danger lurks about. Fear can cause them to behave dangerously. Their dangerous behaviour can cause fear in others. Both the fear and the danger can be the offspring of yet another factor that commonly complicates matters: the unknown. Man’s fear might emerge from a physical thing he fails to comprehend, or it can also explode out of a situation which is beyond his simply control, for which he has no answer, to ripost. Kiss Me Deadly, from 1955, arrived on the silver screen just as the Cold War was, figuratively speaking, heating up,...
- 8/31/2012
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Director: Robert Aldrich Writer: A. I. Bezzerides Cinematographer: Ernest Laszlo Stars: Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper, Cloris Leachman, Gaby Rodgers Studio/Running Time: Criterion, 104 min. Completely at random, Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) nearly runs over a girl wearing nothing but a trenchcoat. While she’s soon caught by the police, Hammer’s intrigued by her tale and begins investigating her past. The very act of pursuing this sets a whole gang of mobsters, FBI agents and seemingly everyone else in the world against Hammer, all the while the girl’s identity and what secrets she was hiding become if anything less clear. That’s...
- 7/7/2011
- Pastemagazine.com
Chicago – Very few movies are as wonderfully weird as “Kiss Me Deadly,” a film that clearly influenced decades of work that would follow from “Blue Velvet” to “The Adjustment Bureau.” Recently released in a beautiful Criterion edition, “Kiss Me Deadly” is a film that history almost forgot but that found its way to the right people who recognized this unique gem as something worth cherishing. It’s a perfect choice for the most important collection of films released on Blu-ray and DVD as it’s a classic less-heralded than some that will now be brought to a wider, adoring audience.
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Based on the book by Mickey Spillane, “Kiss Me Deadly” probably seemed like just another noir when it was released but history has re-appraised the film as a fascinating funhouse mirror of the Cold War fears so prevalent at the time of its release in 1955. Directed by Robert Aldrich...
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Based on the book by Mickey Spillane, “Kiss Me Deadly” probably seemed like just another noir when it was released but history has re-appraised the film as a fascinating funhouse mirror of the Cold War fears so prevalent at the time of its release in 1955. Directed by Robert Aldrich...
- 7/5/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Every Sunday, Film School Rejects presents a film that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents the story of a rough private investigator who’s more unethical than the scum he tracks down, the mystery woman he picks up on the side of the road, and the explosive ending that had to have inspired Raiders of the Lost Ark. Plus, it’s a perfect film to check out during Noir-vember. Twelve years before directing the iconic Dirty Dozen, director Robert Aldrich was soaking in the muck and mire of noir. He was creating another icon – tackling a popular literary private eye with the adaptive care of a rabid porcupine breast-feeding a baby balloon. The two results were 1) a very irritated novelist in Mickey Spillane and 2) a damned fine film. Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picks up a young, beautiful...
- 11/7/2010
- by Cole Abaius
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Actress Maxine Cooper Gomberg has died at her home in Los Angeles. She was 84.
Best known for playing fictional private eye Mickey Spillane's secretary in 1955 film noir classic Kiss Me Deadly, Gomberg - then known as Maxine Cooper - was also a social activist.
She died of natural causes on 4 April.
Moviemaker Robert Aldrich cast the actress in Kiss Me Deadly after seeing her in a Los Angeles theatrical production of Peer Gynt. She also had small roles in the director's films Autumn Leaves and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...
Best known for playing fictional private eye Mickey Spillane's secretary in 1955 film noir classic Kiss Me Deadly, Gomberg - then known as Maxine Cooper - was also a social activist.
She died of natural causes on 4 April.
Moviemaker Robert Aldrich cast the actress in Kiss Me Deadly after seeing her in a Los Angeles theatrical production of Peer Gynt. She also had small roles in the director's films Autumn Leaves and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...
- 4/15/2009
- WENN
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