Monday, March 31, 2008

Kiss Me Deadly

Glenn will no doubt have a good comment to this post.

I'm a huge fan of film noir- in fact, I may have to claim that as my favorite genre. Kiss Me Deadly is among the finest, and is my favorite. Many of these movies involve the McGuffin, which is an object that is an integral part of the plot - usually something that the characters are trying to locate - and KMD has the mysterious box as its mcguffin. Yet by the end it is no longer a simple film noir about an amorous detective trying to locate a box- presumably for more selfish reasons- but becomes a bizarre almost sci-fi element with a great ending. The scene in which the detective is able to fist open the box only briefly is one of my favorite scenes in all of movies. I give it 89%.
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2 comments:

DCP said...

I hate this movie so much and you know it. The end is laughable. SPOILERS I know they were dumb about radiation in the fifties, but did they really think it would just cause a house to spontaneously burst into flames? Give me a break. RATING: 19%

April 1, 2008 at 12:10 AM
Nick said...

Hey, you can't re-rate my ratings! WTF?

I'm not sure it's simply to be considered "radiation." What was in the box was never made clear. Hey, the box in Pulp Fiction (which was, as Tarantino said, inspired by Kiss Me Deadly) was the same sort of thing. I might agree that the ending with the house blowing up would be an outdated American fear (though in the age of car bombs and whatnot, I'd say it could be timely. I like the idea that it is some sort of secret device.

April 1, 2008 at 1:40 AM

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