Out Of The Be-Bop Film Noir Night- The Crime Noir “The Kiss of Death”-
DVD Review
Kiss of Death, Victor Mature, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, directed by Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1947
Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because, in addition to those attributes mentioned above, they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh yah, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kiss of Death, is under that latter category.
But hold on though. Although the plot line is thin, mainly about a middle level career con gone wrong once again who, to save his kids from a fatherless and motherless future (mother having committed suicide), decides to play ball with the law. Thus, chump Nick Bianco (played pretty well by Victor Mature, given what he had to work with) turned stoolie, rat, fink, turncoat and the other ten thousand names for such a wrong gee and the rest of the plot hangs on that idea. Say idea being that it is not good business (and for all I know, maybe, unethical, unethical in the criminal code of conduct, although my own very small youthful experience is that it is "every man for himself") to turn stoolie, especially if the price of “freedom” is to tangle, tango, or whatever with one Tommy Udo. No way, no how, not for anything.
And that is what saves this thing as a crime noir classic, the performance of Richard Widmark as psycho-killer for hire Tommy Udo. Everything about him from minute one says wrong gee, don’t mess. I knew such hard boys, maybe not as hard as Tommy but as a pale reflection corner boy who watched as “Red” Riley chain-whipped a guy near to death just for passing by his corner where he was not welcome in my growing up working class neighborhood I knew, second hand at least, their “style.” Although, needless to say, Nick will mess (Tommy has threatened his kids and his new honey after all) just like eventually the serious outlaw motorcycle boy Pretty James Preston (Vincent Black Lightning no less from Britain no less not some Harley hog or Indian chopper) put even Red Riley out of commission when he just looked, looked longingly, maybe just a second too long at his sweet long-legged red-haired baby, Mimi Murphy.
Yes, although I was only a babe then I will give a retroactive vote to Richard Widmark for that 1947 Oscar he won for best supporting actor. There have been a lot of scary psycho-killers that have come down the pike since then but I would not, and would not advise others, to tangle with this guy. Or Pretty James Preston, who eventually got waylaid by the coppers trying to pull a bank heist single-handedly, if you see his ghost around. And you would too. Kudos.
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