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Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Wesley Addy, Maxine Cooper ... see more see more... , Cloris Leachman , Jack Elam , Juano Hernandez , Gaby Rodgers , Nick Dennis , Jack Lambert , Marian Carr , Jerry Zinneman , Leigh Snowden , Percy Helton , Madi Comfort , Fortunio Bonanova , James McCallion , Silvio Minciotti , Robert Cornthwaite , James Seay , Mara McAfee , Mort Marshall , Jesslyn Fax , Sam Balter , Marjorie Bennett , Joe Hernandez , Strother Martin , Leonard Mudie , Bob Sherman , Kitty White , Paul Richards , Nat King Cole

Regarded by many critics as the ultimate film noir, and by many more as the finest movie adaptation of a book by Mickey Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly stars Ralph Meeker as Spillane's anti-social private ey... read more read more...e Mike Hammer. While driving down a lonely road late one evening, Hammer picks up a beautiful blonde hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman), dressed in nothing but a raincoat. At first, Hammer assumes that the incoherent girl is an escaped lunatic; his mind is changed for him when he and the girl are abducted by two thugs. The men torture the girl to death as the semiconscious Hammer watches helplessly. He himself escapes extermination when the murderers' car topples off a cliff and he is thrown clear. Seeking vengeance, Hammer tries to discover the secret behind the girl's murder. Among those who cross his path in the film's tense, tingling 105 minutes are a slimy gangster (Paul Stewart), a turncoat scientist (Albert Dekker), and the dead woman's sexy roommate (Gaby Rodgers). All clues lead to a mysterious box -- the "Great Whatsit," as Hammer's secretary Velda (Maxine Cooper) describes it. Both the box and Velda are stolen by the villains, at which point Hammer discovers that the "Whatsit" contains radioactive material of awesome powers. The apocalyptic climax is doubly devastating because we're never quite certain if Hammer survives (he doesn't narrate the story, as was the case in most Mike Hammer films and TV shows). Director Robert Aldrich and scriptwriter Jack Moffit transcend Kiss Me Deadly's basic genre trappings to produce a one-of-a-kind melodrama for the nuclear age. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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84% liked it

5,591 ratings

Critics

97% liked it

35 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 45 min.

Directed by: Robert Aldrich

Release Date: April 23, 1955

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DVD Release Date: June 19, 2001

Stats: 471 reviews

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The Girls of Kiss me Deadly Kiss me Deadly Velda working Out A Kiss after a Workout The Hitchhiker Don't Open the Box Curiosity Killed the Cat House on Fire Maxine Cooper Ralph Meeker Radiation Exposure Attitude Adjustment Kiss me Deadly 1955 Kiss me Deadly 1955 Maxine Cooper kiss me deadly kiss me deadly Hammering
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Flixster Reviews (471)

  • axadntpron
    March 29, 2012
    axadntpron
    A meandering, nihilistic Noir that birthed the "golden briefcase" motif that still perplexes film students in universities across the country.
    Throwing us right in the action, director Robert Aldrich begins the film on the opening road with a marvelous title sequence. Our protago... read morenist detective Mike Hammer, is barreling down the freeway, nearly careening off the road at every turn. This opening excellently sums up Hammer's ethos. He is a man that lacks caution, wastes no time in getting what he wants, and pays no mind to the lives he endangers in the process.
    Ralph Meeker is pretty good as the rabid anti-communist and barbaric detective. Unlike other noir detectives, such as Borgart's Phillip Marlowe, Meeker's Hammer isn't exactly charming. Yet, what he lacks in the charisma department he makes up for in sadism.
    Everything else you need to know about his character is summed up when a young woman asks him if he has ever read poetry. The look is hard to describe, but trust me when I say you don't want to be at the receiving end of it.
    However, this brute, our "hero", isn't so bad when compared to the rest of the lot in the film. Aldrich's world is very bleak. Everyone is out to get one-another, and even doctors accept kickbacks.
    Usually dabbling in petty divorce cases, Hammer stumbles into the apocalyptic underworld when the death of a young woman leads him to believe that there might be more dollars signs in his future. He ends up tracking down a mysterious box, much like the one in the Pandora myth, in which it's very opening portends some disastrous consequences. Without getting into specifics, one can glean from the film that Aldrich & screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides didn't think the realities of the nuclear age had positive consequences in American culture.
    While the film isn't perfect and has a tendency to wander, the ending is one of the ballsiest that I have encountered in a long time. This alone is worth moving it to the top of your queue. However, if you are one of those people who would still like to believe that the world is made out of hugs and rainbows, then you might want to leave this on the shelf for the time being.
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    December 21, 2011
    DragonEyeMorrison
    The movie gets it's reputation for the second half for sure, and for the ending. The first half is very average by-the-number noir routine, then it starts to scalate and get better. Meeker is kind of dull in the lead role, but the rest of the cast is quite strong.
  • bookmunki
    August 1, 2011
    bookmunki
    Remember me...
  • stevenecarrier
    June 24, 2011
    stevenecarrier
    I want to say that "Kiss Me Deadly" is a great example of the film noir sensibilities of the 1950s, but that would be doing the film a disservice. There is so much more going on here than just noir. What makes the film so indelibly stylish is that it's picking up, ever so slightl... read morey, on the emerging French New Wave. The composition of shots and certain edits reflect the ideas that are just starting to come out of France in the late 50s. There is also the devilish addition of that mysterious glowing box that adds a sort of Hitchockian (also seen in the constant shots of people's feet walking) flavor and plugs right into the Cold War threat of the era. Needless to say, "Kiss Me Deadly" is endlessly influential. On it's own however, the film is incredibly involving. Mike Hammer's casual sadism and misogyny are invigorating. These things are portrayed in a way that was never seen in a film like this. Looking back at 'film noir,' "Kiss Me Deadly" solidified these traits and upped the ante. This is an apocalyptic, dangerous, stylish entertainment that seems to have a neverending influence, from "Pulp Fiction" up to as recently as "The Ghost Writer."
  • ajv2688
    November 10, 2010
    ajv2688
    This is a pretty brutal, but stylized looking film. It's sort of a film noir, but it's more modern. The ending is very strange, and unexpected too. An interesting movie, I wasn't sure what to make of it.
  • bottcorecords1
    April 16, 2010
    bottcorecords1
    Kiss Me Deadly combines fifties ganster noir with crazy surrealism in what has to be one of the most offbeat dramas of any era. Ralph Meeker stars as Mike Hammer, a private detective who gets very little respect from anyone (as opposed to Humphrey Bogart's Marlowe), partly becau... read morese he's almost as dirty as the criminals he's investigating, partly because of his cocky and arrogant manner. One night after picking up a hot blonde on a deserted road, they're ambushed and left for dead, only he survives. Out of the hospital, he begins to investigate the murder of the girl and tracks down his would-be killers. It all leads to something the girl knew about, an object everyone is eager to get their hands on. Even after seeing this film, I'm not sure what the object is. It's definitely the inspiration for the briefcase in "Pulp Fiction", but even if conventional wisdom says it's something atomic (this was after all, the atomic age), it doesn't explain anything. All that's really known is the characters in this movie are all pursuing death in one way or another, and just about all of them catch up to it.
  • flixsterman
    December 13, 2009
    flixsterman
    Ralph Meeker stars as Mike Hammer, a hard drinkin', hard lovin' private detective hot on the trail of a murderer. He survives being beaten, drugged, shot and even pushed off a cliff in an automobile in this conventional crime thriller with a very unconventional ending. The cast l... read moreist reads like a virtual "who's who" of character actors with names like Cloris Leachman, Albert Dekker, Jack Elam, Percy Helton and Strother Martin. But, even with this bevy of future stars surrounding him it is Meeker that commands your attention. This is a role he was born to play and a film you shouldn't miss!
  • Saxia
    July 2, 2009
    Saxia
    Interesting movie, somehow I found the style very fresh.
    I loved the beginning of the movie, it immediately sets the tone for the rest.
  • dhetteix
    May 11, 2009
    dhetteix
    A tough-as-nails gumshoe Film Noir, a standout gem with perhaps the most memorable "whats-it" in the genre. A cast of amazingly memorable and sleazy characters, innumerable plot-twists, convenient death monologues, dames with guns, and bloody-fisted interrogations from a protagon... read moreist that genuinely seems to enjoy the violence he's inflicting as much as the audience has in watching the story unfold.

    In short: captivating, exacting, gritty fun. A classic that should not be overlooked.
  • groaningbitch
    October 27, 2008
    groaningbitch
    "kiss me deadly" is not the conventional noir which populates in 1940s with detective hero scenarios, and contrarily our opportunistic protagonist could be the meanest dubious anti-hero who sticks to his chauvinist womanizing lifestyle without redeeming mercy. and the catastrophe... read more at last is the metaphoric phobia for the atomic age when chemical explosion is the deadliest phemonal crisis then. the femme fatale is ruthlessly trigger-happy pandora who unravel the lethal box of doom. the world surrounded within "kiss me deadly" is not entirely realistic decadence for the crimes of passion but a crooked labyrinth where man's avarice dominates, and the cynicism of such macabre is timelessly contemporary.

    the profile of our male protagonist is cleverly anchored within the dialogues at the opening sequence while a female asylum inmate hitchhikes his two-seat chic roadster: "a self-indulgent male who cares nothing but his clothes, his car, who only takes but never gives in a relationship."....then the horrid murder under the disguise of car wreck follows after a brutal kidnap. so this self-indulgent male happens to be a bedroom dick, who philanders his own girlfriend to profit from divorce cases, is eager to investigate the truth of the matter on his own, NOT for the sake of performing justice but to gain an angle of earning quick cashes. the process of mayhem is highly practiced within the procedue of obtaining what he yearns to know. so this self-obessed man intimates everyone involed and embraces to kiss every woman to attain his purposes. and that includes whoring his own sappy girlfriend AGAIN. BUT his effortless greed is futile since what he's after turns out to be an appartus of apolytic condemnation.

    this is an universe running amok with its sinister overpower, and its lack of heroic savior is modern syptom of aloof amorality which detonates the explosion of pandora's box to ruminate man's own misdemeanors. ralph meeker's self-assumptious chauvinist ends up being a dope who takes the bullet of punishment from a guiling female con, so he retreats into his maternal girlfriend's bossom to do away with the forseeing descent of pandora's evil venom...could he be immue?

    needless to say, the illuminator is ralph meeker's devilish womanizer as well as gaby rodger who emanates a modern sense of diabolism which rivals lena olin in "romeo is bleeding"...there's not much realism in "kiss me deadly" but an intriguing concept expressed in an utterly self-centered perspective.

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Critic Reviews

Dave Kehr
March 27, 2009
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

This independently produced low-budget film was a shining example for the New Wave directors -- Truffaut, Godard, et al -- who found it proof positive that commercial films could accommodate the quirk... Full Review

Variety Staff
October 30, 2008
Variety Staff, Variety

The trail leads to a series of amorous dames, murder-minded plug-uglies and dangerous adventures that offer excitement but have little clarity to let the viewer know what's going on. Full Review

Roger Moore
April 15, 2005
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

It's not the greatest thriller ever, but Kiss Me Deadly is classic film noir. Full Review

Mick LaSalle
January 1, 2000
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

It's not a horror movie by any means, but like a good horror movie it has images and tiny loose ends that make sense on a subconscious level. Full Review

Sean Gandert
July 9, 2011
Sean Gandert, Paste Magazine

In the years since its release, Kiss Me Deadly has been copied so many times that many of its boldest elements are familiar, but they've done little to dull its overall impact. Full Review

Eric Melin
July 3, 2011
Eric Melin, Scene-Stealers.com

The plot of the book is jettisoned for something altogether more terrifying and mysterious: Possession of a box that glows from within every time it is opened, however briefly. If that sounds like Pul... Full Review

Christopher Long
June 28, 2011
Christopher Long, Movie Metropolis

Kiss Me Deadly was so far out there that it is usually viewed as an end point to the classic film noir cycle. Full Review

Sean Axmaker
June 27, 2011
Sean Axmaker, MSN.com

... delivers a pulp punch while it savagely satirizes the entire hardboiled mythos with its bare-knuckle brutality, flights of purple prose dialogue and he-man chauvinism ... Full Review

James Kendrick
June 23, 2011
James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk

one of the most memorable of American film noir, a remarkable fusion of hard-boiled mystery and atomic horror Full Review

Chris Barsanti
June 20, 2011
Chris Barsanti, Filmcritic.com

...a cubist noir of the atomic age. Full Review

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    • Christina Bailey a.k.a. Berga Torn: Get me to that bus stop and forget you ever saw me. If we don't make that bus stop?
    • Mike Hammer: We will.
    • Christina Bailey a.k.a. Berga Torn: If we don't, remember me.
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Kiss Me Deadly Trivia

  • Which Robert Aldrich film begins with Cloris Leachman running barefoot down a road and ends with an atomic explosion?  Answer »
  • Who directed the films "The Longest Yard", "The Flight of the Phoenix", "All the Marbles", "Ulzana's Raid", "Kiss Me Deadly", "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", and "The Dirty Dozen"?  Answer »
  • Which of the following films was NOT directed by Stanley Kubrick?  Answer »
  • Which famous writer created the tough-guy detective played by Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly?  Answer »
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