Killer's Kiss (1955)

Subject: Killer's Kiss (1955) Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:45 am

While Stanley Kubrick had previously directed Fear and Desire, this film is often cited as his first film as Kubrick was displeased with Fear and Desire and attempted to purchase all copies so that it is never seen. This is about a guy in a train station. While waiting for a train he thinks back on the last three days of his life. He is an aging boxer and lost a fight. Shortly afterward, he meets a dancer and falls in love. The dancer is sort of romantically linked to someone else, but she doesn't care for him. Trouble arises when the two try to run away together towards Seattle. Overall, the plot isn't very good at all. As the film is just 67 minutes long, there isn't really time to do everything it tries to do. It just sort of throws tons of plot elements out there and then tries to sum everything up very quickly. Also, there are several dialogue-free scenes which are very long. While this would be appropriate for a film of reasonable length, these scenes take up way too much time and don't really further the plot at all. They are well-filmed, but unnecessary.

As this is a low-budget film, it doesn't have any big stars. The biggest name is Frank Silvera. The acting in here is mediocre at best, but it's rather difficult to judge as the film is so brief and has so little dialogue.

Overall, this is terrible. It has some pretty good stylistic features that gives it a film noir feel, but that doesn't make up for its glaring weaknesses. The plot is all over the place and briefly narrates several aspects which are rather important. There are also a few moments that seem rather unrealistic. The most obvious was a guy diving through a second story window, breaking the glass in the process, landing on the sidewalk, and getting up unharmed. I've never tried to dive out a second story window or through a closed window, but this seems like it would be a lot more difficult than the film suggests. That particular scene isn't that important, but it's one of many examples of what makes this film poor. I will not give this film any bonus points because it's a Kubrick film and therefore this film is indeed awful.

40/100
F

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