Rating: 
Summary: Feelm nwahrrr
Review: Dark and moody and violent, more style than substance -- and enough more to make it all right (as Humphrey Bogart said in another movie in this genre). Credited with inspiring the entire French New Wave cinema movement of the late 1950s. (In one scene that would have sent those French directors, Ralph Meeker walks a deserted but lamp-lit city street late at night, trailed by a would-be assassin. Their footsteps echo in the stark landscape; their shadows are about a mile long.) Reportedly, French critical writing found deep symbolism in various scenes, whereas director Robert Aldrich responded that this was news to him, they were just shooting a detective picture. True to the spirit of the Mike Hammer novels, there is a pervasive vagueness. Who are all these thugs? (We don't even see their faces at first.) What are they after? (A nasty little radioactive Pandora's Box, we eventually learn; it is very well staged but little explained, and is ultimately a fool's prize.) Well-cast Meeker portrays unredeemed sleazy private eye Mike Hammer, whose normal line is blackmailing married men with the help of his girlfriend Velda (he carries a .45, Velda a .32). The menacing thugs, wearing baggy clothes and fedoras, we might take for NKVD (as indeed they are, in other of the Mickey Spillane novels circa 1950, and also near the end in the 1994 film _Burnt by the Sun_), but sufficient unto this film is the evil thereof, without contribution from Stalin, Beria & Co.
Rating: 
Summary: Seminal
Review: From Sam Spade to Phillip Marlowe to Jake Gittes, no cinema private eye is treated so disdainfully as Mike Hammer in "Kiss Me Deadly". An icon of the Mc Carthy 1950's, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer hates only one thing more than commies, namely the other half of the species, women. To their credit, director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides see through the patriotic veneer to the fascist thug lurking beneath. The film follows Hammer as he blunders through a series of plot mishaps, smashing faces, abusing women, and making all the wrong choices - disastrously, up to and including the apocalyptic finale. Crew-cut Ralph Meeker swaggers through the role in appropriately dim fashion, with a perpetual sneer and a muscle bound pelvic lead - forever beyond self reflection. This is a Hammer that lives up to its name.All of this would be only half an equation had not director Aldrich and production crew pulled off the cautionary tale with such flair and artistry. Noir elements abound, with emphasis on creative camera angles and complex set compositions that keep eyes glued to the screen. Night time shots are beautifully realized and integrated into the seedy plot that is Hammer's appropriate milieu. Critics of the day panned the film, expecting a more conventional style and heroic Hammer. Few films however have been more ahead of their time in both style and content, nor was anyone with the possible exception of Nicholas Ray more attuned to the psychic instability that underlay the outward confomism of the period. Though not a masterpiece, "Kiss Me Deadly" needs no rationalizing. It remains one of the eccentric gems of the modern American screen.
Rating:
Summary: ONE-OF-A-KIND-MOVIE.....
Review: Hands down one of the best detective thrillers there is. Ralph Meeker is the ideal Mike Hammer in this down and dirty crime film. Robert Aldrich directs this at a breathless pace and with ahead of it's time style. Cloris Leachman is featured in an early role at the beginning and you don't forget her for the rest of the film. Her death by torture and her screams haunt the film (and Hammer) and you want her death avenged as much as Hammer does. His secretary, Velda, is a toothy sex-pot with the hots for him so bad you can taste it. She'll literally do ANYTHING for him. Bad girl Lily is a real psycho babe and is willing to bring the world to an end out of greedy curiosity. Her comeuppance is a vivid highlight of the climax. Women like this just weren't on the screen at the time. Only in pulp novels. But Aldrich brings them deliciously to life as motivations for Hammer to plow his way through a truly wild murder mystery and search for a "great what's-it" in pure 50's pulp style. Two endings are available on DVD but I can't see that much difference---but maybe there is. This is slick, violent adult viewing all the way. WAY out there for the time. It's classy stylish trash if there is such a thing but undeniably entertaining and superbly made. Even if you aren't a Spillane fan, you'll enjoy this. It's a great one-of-a-kind movie.
Rating:
Summary: I had to think....
Review: Having seen the film several times now, I decided to venture into the novel on which it is based. Aside from a few name changes, the plot is essentially the same, though some details and sequences of events are altered. In the novel, the 'Mafia' is mentioned as the sinister force behind the abductions and murders that frame the plot, but in the film the 'M' word is never even mentioned! Also, in the novel, the setting is New York City, whereas in the film it is (conveniently for Hollywood) Los Angeles. Mike Hammer in the novel is a brusque, hard-hitting private dick who takes out his enemies with his bare hands. Several passages in which he bare-handedly dispatches the thugs trying to do him in are conspicuously absent from the film. In one episode he pulls the eyeballs out of his opponent's head! The film's version of Hammer is decidedly meeker, though tough enough and callous enough to carry the plot. Ralph Meeker plays Hammer not so much as a tough guy seeking justice, but rather as a hedonist who happens to be caught up in 'Something Big'. In the film, the solution to the riddle of the 'Whatsit' is more of an item of curiosity than of righteousness or vengeance. In the novel, too, the nature of the 'Whatsit' is revealed fairly early on, in contrast to the film, where the nature of the mysterious package is kept concealed until almost the end.
The changes in the film, though technically minor, affect the whole tone of the work. The novel is darker, with many more episodes taking place on rainy days, or at night, in dark alleys and bars.
Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD DETECTIVE MOVIE. BUT WHY IS IT CALLED A CLASSIC?
Review: I don't see what all the hype is about with this movie. The box I got it in said it's a classic! I mean it's a good detective movie and all and the answering machine was ahead of its time in 1955. But I've seen better whodunnits that aren't as violent as this one is and ones with someone to at least root for. You can't tell the good guys and girls from the bad in this movie! And the ones who aren't bad like Nick the mecanic are totally annoying. I turned the sound down everytime he made the va,va room car sound.
Rating: 
Summary: Ridiculous Ending
Review: I love film noir and mysteries in general, but without a long dissertation of this movie's merits and flaws, let me just say that it does keeps you meekly interested; however, just mildly. If your scale considers The Maltese Falcon a classic and Impact a good entertaining film noir, then I'd say you'll agree with me that Kiss Me Deadly is somewhat entertaining, but even considering the time is was produced, its ending is horribly hokey. If you've already seen every film noir movie available, and you don't mind subtitles, try something from the people who coined the phrase, like "Tirez sur le pianiste" (Shoot the Piano Player) and pop some popcorn.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed and Puzzled
Review: I was disappointed in this movie. I chose it having read the critic and customer reviews. I was disappointed - especially in some of the acting and also the directing which may have been responsible for what I consider to be poor choices from the actors and I was puzzled by the mostly rave reviews from critics and custsomers. I'm sorry to disagree with almost everybody else but there it is - and we were so looking forward to seeing this film. Considering especially the year in which it was made, it was just too primitive in execution for me. Some other films made earlier seem, to me, far ahead of this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Review Me Deadly.
Review: I'm sorry, but this just ain't what you might call "a good movie." I saw it at a revival house rather than on DVD, but the complaints remain the same, whether the delivery is digital or celluloid. I've read critics who call this movie "the highwater mark of noir" or the "last word in noir." Maybe Kiss Me Deadly was the end of noir, because this flick single-handedly runs the genre into the ground.
With a lot of help from Bezzerides and the wooden Meeker, the dialog in this flick is totally lifeless. How do we go from such genre classics as "She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up" to "Listen to me, as if I were Cerberus barking with all his heads at the gates of hell!" And this coming after a long string of well-mixed classical allusions.
The plot is, in a word, nonexistent. The Maltese Falcon gives the viewer a great scavenger hunt, but one backed up by a well-considered backstory. Spade may enter that hunt in media res, but there is a story behind the Macguffin. Kiss Me Deadly, on the other hand, doesn't bother providing an origin for the "great whatsit" everyone's after. It doesn't even provide a reason for Hammer to believe he's looking for a tangible thing rather than a person or information. It's just assumed that that's what this movie is about.
So here we've got two of the fundamental ingredients of great noir stripped right out of this picture. What would The Big Sleep be without intricate plotting? What would Double Indemnity be without the MacMurray/Stanwick banter? All Kiss Me Deadly has left going for it is high-contrast black and white and a cartoonishly hard-boiled PI.
Alright, the pro-Hammer camp says, we're looking at a different sort of world here. This isn't Chandler and Hammett: Spillane and Bezzerides's world is a world without cause and effect, without sense. Well, at the moment the nuclear doodad goes critical in a Malibu beachhouse, we see that confirmed and realize it's also a world without much background research.
See this if you must, but only as a last resort. Watch any or all of the following first:
Out of the Past, any of the Thin Man movies, The Long Goodbye, Le Samourai, Shoot the Piano Player, Double Indemnity, Dark Passage, The Maltese Falcon, Vertigo, The Big Sleep, even The Blue Dalhia--and Chandler wrote that script in a single boozed-up weekend.
Or, if you're really into the nonsensical scavenger hunt aspect of Kiss Me Deadly, go rent Repo Man. It's just as far-fetched, but at least it's funny.
Rating:
Summary: A must for fans of film noire
Review: Kiss Me Deadly is a most unforgettable film; it has a heart-pounding opening that never really lets up. Paranoia permeates this film. The black and white photography is extremely effective, as are the almost 3-D camera angles that seem to pull the viewer into the picture. We are taken into a complex web of sleaze, murder, gangsters and mystery. The DVD restores the original ending while allowing us to view the alternate ending as well. The sound and picture quality are outstanding. I have already viewed this film three times and all of my friends have been surprised at how excellent this film is. If you haven't seen it, and are a fan of film noire, you owe it to yourself to purchase it now.
Rating:
Summary: The "Manhattan Project" never looked so good?
Review: Kiss Me Deadly is one heavily stylized, dramatic, often bruality honest, at times confusing, and often mind blowing elevator ride through one of the most often mistfied era's of American culture the 1950's! Set up as a brilliant film noir we are introduced to one stark and nerve shaking image of a bare foot young blonde in a trench-coat and nothing else on a moon-lit highway. She finally hails down Mike Hammer(Meeker in the best role of his career), and for what it's worth a tale of tracking and confussion begins when the car is stopped on the road by thugs and the blonde is murdered and Hammer is left for dead. Hammer's need to find out what happened to the blonde is underscored by his own swarmy life as a seedy private eye for hire. The whole film more than seems realisistic; as if you're traveling along with Hammer as a sort of private eye in training; you visit the thugs and smell the same foul air he smells and cringe as he gets tied down and "spread eagle" across a bed by the same thugs who murdered the blonde he tried save that night on the side of the road. But what was the blonde running from? It was the infamous "Manhattan Project"-what it is we truly never learn but for some strange reason it can set human flesh ablaze and even burn down a house but some how it is contained in a leather box! The film is loaded with "real" looking characters and for a film noir is lends the film a sense of urgency and heightens your paranoia. The film as a whole has some of the most cutting edge dialogue and direction ever put into celluloid! And as for it's reflections into life in the 50's when America was "America". A lot of film's of that age seem to forget the crimes against races, nuclear power, or the atom bomb. "Kiss Me Deadly" plays on that generations fears and insecurites and in the end it makes for a film that is still as powerful and violent as it was some fourty years ago! Oh and if this review seems a bit confusing and dis-jointing, you will too after watching this brilliant film unfold.
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