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Killer's Kiss

Killer's Kiss

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $13.46
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Quality Film Depicting 1955 NYC
Review: The flow keeps you on edge. Black and white camera work is stunning-particularily the haunting towering buildings and canyons of 1955 NYC during the chase scene. Time's Square, stark apartments unleash this haunting, powerful and emotional drama. You feel the suspense. The jazz music throws your senses around, like the characters in swift passion and "see who is following you" paranoia. No studio backlots here. Reality feel, like "On The Waterfront", or "The Last Picture Show" (both in Black and White) only with better lensing from Kubrick's intelligent eye. I sense Kubrick was fascinated by the use of an axe as a weapon of combat-the final scene is amazing-later to be weapon of choice for Jack Nichelson in "The Shining". Just the right length film for my tastes. Not a wasted frame.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Brilliant
Review: The movie was incredible. Pure genius. The only problem I had with it was that the story moved too quickly (the movie's only 67 minutes long), but I guess that probably had to do with the budget.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This one was great
Review: This film is a masterpiece. However, every subsequent film of Kubrick's is completely worthless garbarge.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Wow!
Review: This is an outstanding piece of film making, in spite of a weak script. Kubrick really got in touch with the film noir ideal and delivers a breathtaking combination of direction, lighting, and camera work. Yeah, the scenes that he patched in subtract more than they add, but the guy had zero money. It's amazing how you do your best work when you have the least. This film absolutely drips style.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Early Stanley Kubrick film is a preview of things to come...
Review: When Stanley Kubrick was making Killer's Kiss, he was only 26. At this time, he was still writing his own stories and post-dubbing his films. However, though many Kubrick fans dismiss this film as an early effort, I consider it to be one of his great films. The plot is simple (and the story of a boxer borrows heavily [in both plot and imagery] from his first film, a documentary called Day of the Fight [1951]) and concise (at 64 minutes, it is his shortest feature-length film), but packs a punch that transcends his career.

Davey Gordon is a has-been boxer who still fights, but rarely wins. Across the street, lives a girl by the name of Gloria Price. Gloria is disillusioned and pessimistic (her sister, Iris [played in flashback by Kubrick's second wife, Ruth Sobotka] committed suicide on the same day her father died) and dancer with men for money. Her boss, Vincent Rapallo is desperately in love with her, but, when he advances on her in her apartment, she screams and Davey runs to help her. They fall in love and decide to move away to live with Davey's family. However, when Gloria goes to collect her check from Vincent, Vincent tells his thugs to beat up Davey, who is waiting outside. However, when Davey runs after some Shriners who steal his scarf, the thugs beat and kill Davey's manager, Albert, who was scheduled to meet Davey. Davey is framed and Gloria has been kidnapped. Davey confronts Rapallo, who takes him to Gloria, but Davey is knocked unconscious by the thugs. When he recovers, he sees Gloria trying to get Rapallo to spare her but leading him on. Depressed, Davey escapes by jumping out a window. A chase ensues, leading up to a brutal fight between Davey and Rapallo in a mannequin factory...

The movie itself contains many elements that Kubrick will utilize in his later films. One is Davey's dream sequence, which mimicks the Star Gate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Another is the mannequin fight between Davey (with a long poker) and Rapallo (with an axe), with is very similar to the fight between Spartacus (with a Thracian knife) and Draba (with a trident and net) in Spartacus (1960). As said before, both the preparation for the boxing match and the fight itself are direct recreations of sequences from Day of the Fight (1951). Also previously mentioned is the post-dubbing, which caused Irene Kane (Gloria Price) to be completely dubbed over by another woman when she got tired of repeating her lines over and over again. Irene later became TV journalist Chris Chase and had a brief cameo in All That Jazz (1979). Frank Silvera (Vincent Rapallo) was the star of Kubrick's first feature, the rare Fear and Desire (1953).

All in all, this is a marvelous film. You will get swept up in the plot itself, and Kubrick's camera, as always, is right on track, capturing emotion and drama at the same instant. Upon viewing this film, one is able to clearly see that Kubrick, who went on to so much better, was destined for fame from the start.


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