Kansas City Confidential
1952, USA, 98m, BW, Drama-Crime Thriller-Caper
Screenplay George Bruce, Harry Essex, Phil Karlson [uncredited], John Payne [uncredited] (from an unpublished story by Harold R. Greene and Rowland Brown) Producer Edward Small Photography George E. Diskant Editor Bud Small Music Paul Sawtell Cast John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Dona Drake, Jack Elam, Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef, Mario Siletti, Howard Negley, George Wallace.
Screenplay George Bruce, Harry Essex, Phil Karlson [uncredited], John Payne [uncredited] (from an unpublished story by Harold R. Greene and Rowland Brown) Producer Edward Small Photography George E. Diskant Editor Bud Small Music Paul Sawtell Cast John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Dona Drake, Jack Elam, Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef, Mario Siletti, Howard Negley, George Wallace.
"Terse and tough, Kansas City Confidential is one of the great lean, mean B crime thrillers, with a bang-up opening, a deadly payoff and a shifting set of identities and alliances that keep pulling the rug from under our hero. The scheming rogues gallery and Karlson’s steely transformation of thick fall guy Payne into a snarling, ruthless hero makes this hard-bitten low budget classic a darkly satisfying caper. The collaboration was so successful that Karlson and Payne reunited the next year for 99 River Street, an even more bare-knuckle noir set in the nocturnal shadows of the predatory city." - Sean Axmaker (Parallax View)
Key Largo
1948, USA, 101m, BW, Crime-Drama-Gangster Film
Screenplay Richard Brooks, John Huston (from the play by Maxwell Anderson) Producer Jerry Wald Photography Karl Freund Editor Rudi Fehr Music Max Steiner Cast Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Dan Seymour, Harry Lewis, John Rodney, Marc Lawrence.
Screenplay Richard Brooks, John Huston (from the play by Maxwell Anderson) Producer Jerry Wald Photography Karl Freund Editor Rudi Fehr Music Max Steiner Cast Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Dan Seymour, Harry Lewis, John Rodney, Marc Lawrence.
"Reworking of a Maxwell Anderson play about a gangster under threat of deportation who holes up with his henchmen in a semi-derelict hotel on an island off Florida... The debt to The Petrified Forest is obvious, but instead of wallowing in world-weary pseudo-philosophy, Key Largo has altogether sharper things to say about post-war disillusionment, corruption in politics, and the fact that the old freebooting ways of the gangster were about to change into something more sinisterly complex. Huston skilfully breaks up the action (basically one set and one continuous scene), working subtle variations on his groupings with the aid of superb deep-focus camera-work by Karl Freund. And although the characters are basically stereotypes, they are lent the gift of life by a superlative cast." - Tom Milne (Time Out)
Key Witness
1947, USA, 67m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Edward Bock, Raymond L. Schrock (from a story by J. Donald Wilson) Producer Rudolph C. Flothow Photography Philip Tannura Editor Dwight Caldwell Music Mischa Bakaleinikoff Cast John Beal, Trudy Marshall, Jimmy Lloyd, Helen Mowery, Wilton Graff, Barbara Read, Charles Trowbridge, Harry Hayden, William Newell, Selmer Jackson.
Screenplay Edward Bock, Raymond L. Schrock (from a story by J. Donald Wilson) Producer Rudolph C. Flothow Photography Philip Tannura Editor Dwight Caldwell Music Mischa Bakaleinikoff Cast John Beal, Trudy Marshall, Jimmy Lloyd, Helen Mowery, Wilton Graff, Barbara Read, Charles Trowbridge, Harry Hayden, William Newell, Selmer Jackson.
"Highly implausible, vastly over plotted, coincidence-ridden tale of failed inventor Milton Higby (John Beal), who wins a stack of money at the races, goes on the lam as a hobo after a girl is murdered while he drunkenly slumbers, takes on the identity of another hobo whose dead body he finds, is taken in as a long-lost son by the dead hobo's wealthy father, John Ballin (Charles Trowbridge), becomes a successful inventor, is tracked down and accused of murdering both the dead girl and dead hobo… All this and more in 67 minutes!" - John Grant (A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir)
Kill Her Gently
● BRIT-NOIR
1957, UK, 75m, BW, Thriller-Drama
Screenplay Paul Erickson Producer Guido Coen Photography Walter J. Harvey Editor Margery Saunders Music Edwin Astley Cast Griffith Jones, Maureen Connell, Marc Lawrence, George Mikell, Shay Gorman, Marianne Brauns, Frank Hawkins, John Gayford, Roger Avon, Patrick Connor.
1957, UK, 75m, BW, Thriller-Drama
Screenplay Paul Erickson Producer Guido Coen Photography Walter J. Harvey Editor Margery Saunders Music Edwin Astley Cast Griffith Jones, Maureen Connell, Marc Lawrence, George Mikell, Shay Gorman, Marianne Brauns, Frank Hawkins, John Gayford, Roger Avon, Patrick Connor.
"Deranged Jeff Martin (Griffith Jones) picks up two escaped convicts - Lars Svenson (George Mikell) and William Connors (Marc Lawrence) - and offers them £1,000 and help to leave the country if they'll imitate a home invasion and murder his wife, Kay (Maureen Connell), whom he's convinced is responsible fo all his ills. A competent programmer builds up a fair level of suspense." - John Grant (A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir)
Kill Me Again
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1989, USA, 94m, Col, Thriller-Crime
Screenplay David W. Warfield, John Dahl Producers David W. Warfield, Sigurjon Sighvatsson, Steve Golin Photography Jacques Steyn Editors Eric L. Beason, Frank Jimenez, Jonathan Shaw Music William Olvis Cast Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Michael Madsen, Jon Gries, Pat Mulligan, Nick Dimitri, Michael Greene, Bibi Besch, Jim Boeke, Carroll Lewis.
1989, USA, 94m, Col, Thriller-Crime
Screenplay David W. Warfield, John Dahl Producers David W. Warfield, Sigurjon Sighvatsson, Steve Golin Photography Jacques Steyn Editors Eric L. Beason, Frank Jimenez, Jonathan Shaw Music William Olvis Cast Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Michael Madsen, Jon Gries, Pat Mulligan, Nick Dimitri, Michael Greene, Bibi Besch, Jim Boeke, Carroll Lewis.
"Derived from assorted Hitchcocks and noir classics, the tortuous storyline of writer-director Dahl's determinedly sordid thriller has its moments, but the whole thing is fatally scuppered by the Kilmer pairing. Joanne is trying far too hard and looks like it, while Val, whose pudgy baby-face makes nonsense of his world-weary, tough-guy posturing, alternates between two expressions: troubled (unsmiling) and beguiled (faintly smiling). Setting its study of betrayal and deceit in and around the gambling towns of the Nevada desert, the film sporadically achieves a truly seedy atmosphere, but there are too many symbols, too many loose ends, and too many vaguely sensationalist scenes." - Geoff Andrew (Time Out)
The Killer Inside Me
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1976, USA, 99m, Col, Crime-Police Drama
Screenplay Edward Mann, Robert Chamblee (based on the novel by Jim Thompson) Producer Michael W. Leighton Photography William A. Fraker Editors Aaron Stell, Danford B. Greene Music John Rubinstein, Tim McIntire Cast Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, Keenan Wynn, Don Stroud, Charles McGraw, John Dehner, Pepe Serna, John Carradine, Royal Dano.
1976, USA, 99m, Col, Crime-Police Drama
Screenplay Edward Mann, Robert Chamblee (based on the novel by Jim Thompson) Producer Michael W. Leighton Photography William A. Fraker Editors Aaron Stell, Danford B. Greene Music John Rubinstein, Tim McIntire Cast Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, Keenan Wynn, Don Stroud, Charles McGraw, John Dehner, Pepe Serna, John Carradine, Royal Dano.
"Not even the offices of the excellent Burt Kennedy can save this hopelessly stodgy and psychologising story about a self-consciously good cop (Keach) who finds a traumatic childhood experience catching up on him. Kennedy none the less does ensure that the film is crammed with enough pleasing incidental detail to make it watchable. Don Stroud lopes through the part of a naive and ape-ish slob with evident enjoyment; now perhaps if he and Keach had swapped roles... The pity of it is that the script by Edward Mann and Robert Chamblee wrecks a very good novel by Jim Thompson." - Verina Glaessner (Time Out)
The Killer Inside Me
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
2010, USA-UK-Sweden-France, 109m, Col, Crime-Drama-Thriller
Screenplay John Curran (based on the novel by Jim Thompson) Producers Andrew Eaton, Bradford L. Schlei, Chris Hanley Photography Marcel Zyskind Editor Mags Arnold Music Joel Cadbury, Melissa Parmenter Cast Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas, Tom Bower, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman, Brent Briscoe, Matthew Maher.
2010, USA-UK-Sweden-France, 109m, Col, Crime-Drama-Thriller
Screenplay John Curran (based on the novel by Jim Thompson) Producers Andrew Eaton, Bradford L. Schlei, Chris Hanley Photography Marcel Zyskind Editor Mags Arnold Music Joel Cadbury, Melissa Parmenter Cast Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas, Tom Bower, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman, Brent Briscoe, Matthew Maher.
"Casey Affleck grins like a death's head with the flesh reattached in this noir thriller from British director Michael Winterbottom, which is sickeningly violent but undoubtedly well made. It has been widely condemned for the scenes in which women are brutally assaulted and for many, this film will be just hardcore misogynist hate-porn with a fancy wrapper, and those who admire it, or tolerate it, are merely the women-haters' useful idiots. My own view is that this is a seriously intentioned movie, which addresses and confronts the question of male hate and male violence in the form of a nightmare… The Killer Inside Me is adapted from the pulp thriller by Jim Thompson, and Affleck plays the chillingly sociopathic Lou Ford, who happens to be the deputy sheriff in a small Texas town in the 1950s." - Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian)
The Killer is Loose
1956, USA, 73m, BW, Crime-Drama-Police Detective Film
Screenplay Harold Medford (from the story by John Hawkins & Ward Hawkins, published in the Saturday Evening Post) Producer Robert L. Jacks Photography Lucien Ballard Editor George Gittens Music Lionel Newman Cast Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale Jr., Michael Pate, John Larch, Dee J. Thompson, John Beradino, Virginia Christine, Paul Bryar.
Screenplay Harold Medford (from the story by John Hawkins & Ward Hawkins, published in the Saturday Evening Post) Producer Robert L. Jacks Photography Lucien Ballard Editor George Gittens Music Lionel Newman Cast Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale Jr., Michael Pate, John Larch, Dee J. Thompson, John Beradino, Virginia Christine, Paul Bryar.
"I agree with Sheri Chinen Biesen, the author of Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir, that the genre was launched during the war and reflects the traumas that it immediately inflicted on American society. Those traumas reached deep and lasted long, and Budd Boetticher’s 1956 film noir, The Killer Is Loose, is fuelled by them. The coldly fragmented bank-robbery scene that sets the plot in motion offers an odd aside of a veterans’ reunion, and the memories and scars of war crop up decisively throughout the movie. But Boetticher saw violence everywhere and was sensitive to its ambient horrors, even when unleashed with principle. This movie, with its focus on crime and punishment—and on the private lives of police officers and criminals alike—redefines the very idea of the war at home." - Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
The Killer That Stalked New York
1950, USA, 79m, BW, Crime-Drama-Thriller
Screenplay Harry Essex (from a Cosmopolitan magazine article Smallpox: The Killer That Stalked New York by Milton Lehman) Producer Robert Cohn Photography Joseph Biroc Editor Jerome Thoms Music Hans J. Salter Cast Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright, Barry Kelley, Carl Benton Reid, Ludwig Donath, Art Smith, Whit Bissell.
Screenplay Harry Essex (from a Cosmopolitan magazine article Smallpox: The Killer That Stalked New York by Milton Lehman) Producer Robert Cohn Photography Joseph Biroc Editor Jerome Thoms Music Hans J. Salter Cast Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright, Barry Kelley, Carl Benton Reid, Ludwig Donath, Art Smith, Whit Bissell.
"Think of the teeming hub of humanity that is New York City and then imagine a person with a highly contagious and deadly disease wandering among the masses, spreading death and panic. Based on an actual case in 1946 - a smallpox scare in which millions of New Yorkers received free vaccinations - The Killer That Stalked New York is a fictionalized dramatization of that incident… The Killer That Stalked New York, directed by Earl McEvoy, is a highly atmospheric and taut little film noir that benefits greatly from the documentary-like approach that cinematographer Joseph Biroc brings to the film, utilizing real New York City locations.“ - Jeff Stafford (Turner Classic Movies)
The Killers
1946, USA, 105m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Anthony Veiller, Richard Brooks, John Huston (based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway) Producer Mark Hellinger Photography Elwood Bredell Editor Arthur Hilton Music Miklos Rozsa Cast Edmond O'Brien, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Virginia Christine, Charles McGraw, William Conrad, John Miljan, Vince Barnett.
Screenplay Anthony Veiller, Richard Brooks, John Huston (based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway) Producer Mark Hellinger Photography Elwood Bredell Editor Arthur Hilton Music Miklos Rozsa Cast Edmond O'Brien, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Virginia Christine, Charles McGraw, William Conrad, John Miljan, Vince Barnett.
"The Killers was made in 1946, the year French critic Nino Frank coined the term film noir. It's a classic by a supreme exponent of that genre, German emigre Robert Siodmak. It was adapted by Anthony Veiller (a frequent collaborator of John Huston's) from a Hemingway short story in which the novelist's alter ego, Nick Adams, is present at a Midwestern diner when two hitmen come to murder a down-and-out ex-boxer known as 'the Swede'... The Killers introduced Burt Lancaster to the screen as the Swede and made him a star, as it did the then little-known Ava Gardner who smoulders like Mount Etna... The movie's influence has extended over 60 years to take in Cronenberg's homage, A History of Violence." - Philip French (The Guardian)
The Killers
● LATE NOIR (1960s) / COLOUR NOIR
1964, USA, 95m, Col, Drama-Crime-Thriller
Screenplay Gene L. Coon (based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway) Producer Don Siegel Photography Richard L. Rawlings Editor Richard Belding Music John Williams Cast Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, Ronald Reagan, Clu Gulager, Claude Akins, Norman Fell, Virginia Christine, Don Haggerty, Robert Phillips.
1964, USA, 95m, Col, Drama-Crime-Thriller
Screenplay Gene L. Coon (based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway) Producer Don Siegel Photography Richard L. Rawlings Editor Richard Belding Music John Williams Cast Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes, Ronald Reagan, Clu Gulager, Claude Akins, Norman Fell, Virginia Christine, Don Haggerty, Robert Phillips.
"The second film version of Ernest Hemingway's short story, directed by Don Siegel with far more energy than Robert Siodmak could muster for his overrated 1946 effort. Siegel turns the story inside out, taking the point of view of Hemingway's two faceless hit men and following their attempt to find out why one of their victims refused to run. It was planned as one of the first made-for-TV movies, but Siegel, with the perversity of a true auteur, went ahead and shot it in 'Scope anyway. Thankfully, Universal decided it was too violent and released it to theaters." - Dave Kehr (Chicago Reader)
Killer's Kiss
1955, USA, 67m, BW, Thriller-Crime
Screenplay Stanley Kubrick, Howard Sackler [uncredited] Producer Stanley Kubrick, Morris Bousel Photography Stanley Kubrick Editor Stanley Kubrick Music Gerald Fried Cast Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Jerry Jarret, Julius Adelman, Mike Dana, Felice Orlandi, Ralph Roberts, Alec Rubin, Phil Stevenson.
Screenplay Stanley Kubrick, Howard Sackler [uncredited] Producer Stanley Kubrick, Morris Bousel Photography Stanley Kubrick Editor Stanley Kubrick Music Gerald Fried Cast Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Jerry Jarret, Julius Adelman, Mike Dana, Felice Orlandi, Ralph Roberts, Alec Rubin, Phil Stevenson.
"Produced on a shoestring budget of $75,000, Killer's Kiss was Stanley Kubrick's second feature but the first one to demonstrate his emerging style and technical virtuosity as a filmmaker. Although the plot is straight out of a pulp fiction novel - a second-rate boxer rescues a dancer from a lecherous nightclub owner with underworld connections - Kubrick cleverly exploits the film noir aspects of the material through his evocative cinematography; flophouses, cheap restaurants, penny arcades, and other now vanished remnants of the Broadway section around Times Square serve as a seedy backdrop to the story. The film is also distinguished by Kubrick's use of flashbacks, nightmare sequences shot on negative film stock, and dynamic editing techniques such as the scene where he cuts back and forth between a boxing match and an attempted rape." - Jeff Stafford (Turner Classic Movies)
The Killing
1956, USA, 85m, BW, Crime-Thriller-Gangster Film
Screenplay Stanley Kubrick, Jim Thompson (from the novel The Clean Break by Lionel White) Producer James B. Harris Photography Lucien Ballard Editor Betty Steinberg Music Gerald Fried Cast Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Ted De Corsia, Timothy Carey, Joseph Sawyer, Jay Adler.
Screenplay Stanley Kubrick, Jim Thompson (from the novel The Clean Break by Lionel White) Producer James B. Harris Photography Lucien Ballard Editor Betty Steinberg Music Gerald Fried Cast Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Ted De Corsia, Timothy Carey, Joseph Sawyer, Jay Adler.
"Based on a novel by Lionel White, The Killing is at base a fairly straightforward accounting of a racetrack robbery engineered by a group of small-time crooks. There’s nothing straightforward, however, about Kubrick’s style. The sense of cool remove, obsession with technical detail, and unblinking regard toward violence that would make such Kubrick classics as The Shining, Barry Lyndon, and Full Metal Jacket is everywhere apparent in this tight, sleek action film highlighted by an array of sharp character performers and the polished sheen of Lucien Ballard’s high contrast cinematography." - David Ehrenstein (The Criterion Collection)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1976, USA, 109m, Col, Drama-Crime
Screenplay John Cassavetes Producer Al Ruban Photography Frederick Elmes, Michael Ferris, Mitchell Breit Editor Tom Cornwall Music Bo Harwood Cast Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Azizi Johari, Meade Roberts, Alice Fredlund, Virginia Carrington, Soto Joe Hugh, Robert Phillips, Morgan Woodward.
1976, USA, 109m, Col, Drama-Crime
Screenplay John Cassavetes Producer Al Ruban Photography Frederick Elmes, Michael Ferris, Mitchell Breit Editor Tom Cornwall Music Bo Harwood Cast Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Azizi Johari, Meade Roberts, Alice Fredlund, Virginia Carrington, Soto Joe Hugh, Robert Phillips, Morgan Woodward.
"John Cassavetes's first crime thriller, a postnoir masterpiece, failed miserably at the box office when first released in 1976… A personal, deeply felt character study rather than a routine action picture, it follows Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara), the charismatic owner of an LA strip joint—simultaneously an asshole and a saint—who recklessly gambles his way into debt and has to bump off a Chinese bookie to settle his accounts. In many respects the film serves as a personal testament; what makes the tragicomic character of Cosmo so moving is its alter-ego relation to the filmmaker—the proud impresario and father figure of a tattered showbiz collective (read Cassavetes's actors and filmmaking crew) who must compromise his ethics to keep his little family afloat (read Cassavetes's career as a Hollywood actor)." - Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader)
The Kill-Off
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1989, USA, 91m, Col, Drama-Crime
Screenplay Maggie Greenwald (based on the novel by Jim Thompson) Producer Lydia Dean Pilcher Photography Declan Quinn Editor James Y. Kwei Music Evan Lurie Cast Loretta Gross, Andrew Lee Barrett, Jackson Sims, Steve Monroe, Cathy Haase, William Russell, Jorja Fox, Sean O'Sullivan, Ellen Kelly, Ralph Graff.
1989, USA, 91m, Col, Drama-Crime
Screenplay Maggie Greenwald (based on the novel by Jim Thompson) Producer Lydia Dean Pilcher Photography Declan Quinn Editor James Y. Kwei Music Evan Lurie Cast Loretta Gross, Andrew Lee Barrett, Jackson Sims, Steve Monroe, Cathy Haase, William Russell, Jorja Fox, Sean O'Sullivan, Ellen Kelly, Ralph Graff.
"For her second feature, an adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel, Greenwald almost gets it perfect. As she charts the sordid lives of various no-hopers struggling to make it in a seedy, wintry East Coast resort, she revels in the laconic dialogue, vicious motivations and downbeat mood beloved by Thompson fans… Loretta Gross, memorably nasty as the twisted invalid, is backed up by equally efficient unknowns, while Declan Quinn's camerawork creates a vivid atmosphere of claustrophobic despair. As a thriller, however, the movie is short of real suspense: comparison with Blood Simple highlights Greenwald's slow pace, while Le Corbeau, Clouzot's misanthropic masterpiece of 1943, provides far more psychological complexity, moral rigour and nail-biting tension in its corrosive examination of paranoid corruption." - Geoff Andrew (Time Out)
King of New York
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1990, USA, 103m, Col, Crime-Thriller-Gangster Film
Screenplay Nicholas St. John Producer Mary Kane Photography Bojan Bazelli Editor Anthony Redman Music Joe Delia Cast Christopher Walken, David Caruso, Laurence Fishburne, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, Janet Julian, Joey Chin, Giancarlo Esposito, Steve Buscemi, Theresa Randle.
1990, USA, 103m, Col, Crime-Thriller-Gangster Film
Screenplay Nicholas St. John Producer Mary Kane Photography Bojan Bazelli Editor Anthony Redman Music Joe Delia Cast Christopher Walken, David Caruso, Laurence Fishburne, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, Janet Julian, Joey Chin, Giancarlo Esposito, Steve Buscemi, Theresa Randle.
"This 1990 movie hasn't aged well, perhaps because director Abel Ferrara relied too heavily on the canned irony at the heart of Nicholas St. John's script about a rising drug king who's also a philanthropist. Expressive montages of New York City make for some of the strongest moments, and the high-style action set pieces helped define a standard that's since been debased by empty emulation. But the themes about the many hypocrisies of the war on drugs are spelled out almost too efficiently… Still, the imposing performances in this chess game between pointedly black and white criminals (Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne) and police detectives (Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, David Caruso) are as impressive as ever." - Lisa Alspector (Chicago Reader)
A Kiss Before Dying
● COLOUR NOIR
1956, USA, 94m, Col, Mystery-Thriller
Screenplay Lawrence Roman (based on the novel by Ira Levin) Producer Robert L. Jacks Photography Lucien Ballard Editor George Gittens Music Lionel Newman Cast Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith, Mary Astor, George Macready, Robert Quarry, Howard Petrie, Bill Walker, Mollie McCart.
1956, USA, 94m, Col, Mystery-Thriller
Screenplay Lawrence Roman (based on the novel by Ira Levin) Producer Robert L. Jacks Photography Lucien Ballard Editor George Gittens Music Lionel Newman Cast Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith, Mary Astor, George Macready, Robert Quarry, Howard Petrie, Bill Walker, Mollie McCart.
"Based on the first novel by an as-yet unheralded Ira Levin, A Kiss Before Dying is pure potboiler: college student Bud (Robert Wagner), upon discovering that his girlfriend, Dory (Joanne Woodward), is pregnant out of wedlock, plots to kill her… There’s little, narratively speaking, to suggest a work of weight and nuance, and yet Oswald accomplishes it, crafting a visually complex film… Suffice it to say I am unreasonably, inescapably smitten with Gerd Oswald’s A Kiss Before Dying, but then again, I am also particularly drawn to films that proudly trumpet their own alterity. It is one of those rare films that is able to overcome the organizational or studio fetters that seem destined to bog so many films down in the mires of B-grade obscurity, and demonstrate genuine intelligence" - James Crawford (Reverse Shot)
A Kiss Before Dying
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1991, USA-UK, 94m, Col, Crime-Mystery-Thriller
Screenplay James Dearden (based on the novel by Ira Levin) Producer Robert Lawrence Photography Mike Southon Editor Michael Bradsell Music Howard Shore Cast Matt Dillon, Sean Young, Max von Sydow, Diane Ladd, Joie Lee, James Russo, Briony Glassco, Adam Horovitz, Martha Gehman, Yvette Edelhart.
1991, USA-UK, 94m, Col, Crime-Mystery-Thriller
Screenplay James Dearden (based on the novel by Ira Levin) Producer Robert Lawrence Photography Mike Southon Editor Michael Bradsell Music Howard Shore Cast Matt Dillon, Sean Young, Max von Sydow, Diane Ladd, Joie Lee, James Russo, Briony Glassco, Adam Horovitz, Martha Gehman, Yvette Edelhart.
"Ira Levin's novel - already filmed once before in 1956 with Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward — is a fiendishly clever mystery, with one stunning plot twist that simply cannot be transferred to the big screen. This entertaining remake, written and directed by James Dearden, best known as the screenwriter of Fatal Attraction, ends abruptly, however, with the curtailment of about 28 sub-plots that never get resolved, suggesting a film that has had severe problems either in the writing or the production, a film that never really gets finished… If A Kiss Before Dying works at all, it's thanks to Dillon's subtle and plausible nutcase performance, changing each time he has to impress someone different and not too over-the-top in the mad frenzy scenes. And Sean Young is good, too, in both her parts." - Kim Newman (Empire)
Kiss Me Deadly
1955, USA, 106m, BW, Crime-Thriller-Detective Film
Screenplay A.I. Bezzerides (from the novel by Mickey Spillane) Producer Robert Aldrich Photography Ernest Laszlo Editor Michael Luciano Music Frank De Vol Cast Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Maxine Cooper, Paul Stewart, Gaby Rodgers, Cloris Leachman, Jack Lambert, Wesley Addy, Nick Dennis, Marian Carr.
Screenplay A.I. Bezzerides (from the novel by Mickey Spillane) Producer Robert Aldrich Photography Ernest Laszlo Editor Michael Luciano Music Frank De Vol Cast Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Maxine Cooper, Paul Stewart, Gaby Rodgers, Cloris Leachman, Jack Lambert, Wesley Addy, Nick Dennis, Marian Carr.
"Talk about the tension between a director and his material - which was one of the critical cornerstones of the French New Wave’s reassessment of American movies - and they were the first to point out this frisson in the work of iconoclastic director-producer Robert Aldrich; perhaps most noticeably in his aggressive independent film, the dark and dangerous 1955 thriller, Kiss Me Deadly. Aldrich hated detective-fiction writer Mickey Spillane’s novels so much that he took one of the author’s most popular and typical Mike Hammer private-eye stories and transformed it into not only the best picture ever made from Spillane (which isn’t saying much) but a savagely angry film noir classic of annihilating dimension - literally: At the end, everybody, including Hammer, gets blown away in a dusk-lit Malibu beach house by no less than a nuclear blast. What then happened to L.A. is left to the imagination." - Peter Bogdanovich (Blogdanovich)
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
2005, USA, 103m, Col, Action-Comedy-Crime
Screenplay Shane Black (based on the novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday) Producer Joel Silver Photography Michael Barrett Editor Jim Page Music John Ottman Cast Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Dash Mihok, Larry Miller, Rockmund Dunbar, Shannyn Sossamon, Angela Lindvall, Indio Falconer Downey.
2005, USA, 103m, Col, Action-Comedy-Crime
Screenplay Shane Black (based on the novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday) Producer Joel Silver Photography Michael Barrett Editor Jim Page Music John Ottman Cast Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Dash Mihok, Larry Miller, Rockmund Dunbar, Shannyn Sossamon, Angela Lindvall, Indio Falconer Downey.
"In his lively debut as a director, screenwriter Shane Black creates a movie that is defiantly smartass and too cool for the room. I couldn't have liked it more. Black was regularly bashed for making too much money churning out escapism, from Lethal Weapon to The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. But watching him use Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang to turn the action-thriller genre on its empty head provides a special kind of pleasure. Even when the movie jumps the tracks, it's outrageous, off-the-wall fun. Robert Downey Jr., at his playfully snarky best, narrates the film as Harry Lockhart, a petty thief from New York who evades the cops by hiding out at an acting audition." - Peter Travers (Rolling Stone)
Kiss of Death
1947, USA, 98m, BW, Drama-Crime-Thriller
Screenplay Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer (from an unpublished story by Eleazar Lipsky) Producer Fred Kohlmar Photography Norbert Brodine Editor J. Watson Webb Music David Buttolph Cast Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Richard Widmark, Coleen Gray, Karl Malden, Taylor Holmes, Mildred Dunnock, Millard Mitchell, Howard Smith, Anthony Ross.
Screenplay Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer (from an unpublished story by Eleazar Lipsky) Producer Fred Kohlmar Photography Norbert Brodine Editor J. Watson Webb Music David Buttolph Cast Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Richard Widmark, Coleen Gray, Karl Malden, Taylor Holmes, Mildred Dunnock, Millard Mitchell, Howard Smith, Anthony Ross.
"Late '40s Fox saw several attempts to conceal the split in the gangster film between noir expressionism and 'procedural' authenticity, but few as bizarre as this. Mature is the stool-pigeon torn apart by two kinds of family loyalty: the Mob and the Missus. Widmark debuts as a psycho hood with an unforgettable chuckle and a nice line in helping wheelchair-ridden old ladies down stairs. Of its period, of course, but extraordinarily modern too: nighttime New York peopled only by daylight's misfits (à la The Warriors); and when Mature's wife kills herself, a neighbour happily takes her place." - Paul Kerr (Time Out)
Kiss of Death
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1995, USA, 101m, Col, Crime-Action-Thriller
Screenplay Richard Price (from a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer) Producers Barbet Schroeder, Susan Hoffman Photography Luciano Tovoli Editor Lee Percy Music Trevor Jones Cast David Caruso, Samuel L. Jackson, Nicolas Cage, Helen Hunt, Kathryn Erbe, Stanley Tucci, Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames, Anne Meara, Anthony Heald.
1995, USA, 101m, Col, Crime-Action-Thriller
Screenplay Richard Price (from a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer) Producers Barbet Schroeder, Susan Hoffman Photography Luciano Tovoli Editor Lee Percy Music Trevor Jones Cast David Caruso, Samuel L. Jackson, Nicolas Cage, Helen Hunt, Kathryn Erbe, Stanley Tucci, Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames, Anne Meara, Anthony Heald.
"Kiss of Death is a hard-boiled crime movie featuring first-time leading man David Caruso, from TV's NYPD Blue, opposite Nicholas Cage as the weirdest villain since Dennis Hopper slithered into Blue Velvet. The direction is by Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune), the screenplay is by novelist Richard Price (Clockers), it's a loose remake of the 1947 movie where Richard Widmark pushed the wheelchair down the stairs, and with a pedigree like that it shouldn't be disjointed and uncompelling, but it is… There is plot and more plot in Kiss of Death. By the time it's over you may wish you had taken notes, to keep track of who is doing what, and with which, and to whom." - Roger Ebert (Roger Ebert.com)
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
1948, USA, 80m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Leonardo Bercovici (with additional dialogue by Hugh Gray, adapted by Ben Maddow and Walter Bernstein from the novel by Gerald Butler) Producer Richard Vernon Photography Russell Metty Editor Milton Carruth Music Miklos Rozsa Cast Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton, Lewis L. Russell, Aminta Dyne, Grizelda Harvey, Jay Novello, Colin Keith-Johnston, Reginald Sheffield, Campbell Copelin.
Screenplay Leonardo Bercovici (with additional dialogue by Hugh Gray, adapted by Ben Maddow and Walter Bernstein from the novel by Gerald Butler) Producer Richard Vernon Photography Russell Metty Editor Milton Carruth Music Miklos Rozsa Cast Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton, Lewis L. Russell, Aminta Dyne, Grizelda Harvey, Jay Novello, Colin Keith-Johnston, Reginald Sheffield, Campbell Copelin.
"Lancaster stars as an ex-serviceman who kills the bartender of a London pub one night and escapes into the foggy, bombed-out remains of the city. With the cops in pursuit, he climbs into the window of the apartment of a young nurse played by Joan Fontaine. The mechanics of the plot grind a little as they maneuver Lancaster and Fontaine into a romance, but once the story is set up, things run smoothly... Foster and his team brought a rich visual style to Kiss the Blood Off My Hands. Shot by veteran cinematographer Russell Metty, the look of the film recalls Joseph August's work on John Ford's The Informer without simply repeating it. Metty blends sharp blacks and whites with mysterious foggy backgrounds, and he's helped mightily by the fine set design of Bernard Herzbrun and Nathan Juran." - Jake Hinkson (Bright Lights Film Journal)
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
1950, USA, 102m, BW, Crime-Gangster Film-Thriller
Screenplay Harry Brown (from the novel by Horace McCoy) Producer William Cagney Photography Peverell Marley Editors Truman K. Wood, Walter Hannemann Music Carmen Dragon Cast James Cagney, Barbara Payton, Luther Adler, Helena Carter, Ward Bond, Barton MacLane, Steve Brodie, Neville Brand, Rhys Williams, Herbert Heyes.
Screenplay Harry Brown (from the novel by Horace McCoy) Producer William Cagney Photography Peverell Marley Editors Truman K. Wood, Walter Hannemann Music Carmen Dragon Cast James Cagney, Barbara Payton, Luther Adler, Helena Carter, Ward Bond, Barton MacLane, Steve Brodie, Neville Brand, Rhys Williams, Herbert Heyes.
"Excellent gangster thriller based on Horace McCoy's novel about an escaped con first ruthlessly betraying his partner, and then planning an ambitious robbery. Strong performances from a great cast and Douglas' taut, classical direction place it among the best of the post-war gangster movies, but it is of course Cagney who is most memorable: strutting, snarling, and lashing out in almost psychopathic anger at all around him, his immense energy conveys the spirit of callous violence far more effectively than the explicit acts perpetrated in later movies." - Geoff Andrew (Time Out)
Klute
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1971, USA, 114m, Col, Crime-Mystery-Thriller
Screenplay Andy Lewis, Dave Lewis Producers Alan J. Pakula, David Lang Photography Gordon Willis Editor Carl Lerner Music Michael Small Cast Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Roy Scheider, Dorothy Tristan, Rita Gam, Richard B. Shull, Vivian Nathan, Nathan George, Morris Strassberg.
1971, USA, 114m, Col, Crime-Mystery-Thriller
Screenplay Andy Lewis, Dave Lewis Producers Alan J. Pakula, David Lang Photography Gordon Willis Editor Carl Lerner Music Michael Small Cast Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Roy Scheider, Dorothy Tristan, Rita Gam, Richard B. Shull, Vivian Nathan, Nathan George, Morris Strassberg.
"Fonda's Oscar-winning performance as New York call-girl Bree Daniels is the real focus of Pakula's thriller, rather than Sutherland's Klute, the private eye whose increasingly obsessional 'protection' she reluctantly receives when menaced by a former client. Though it's obviously valid to follow the line that Klute, with its abstracted updates of private eye and urban noir conventions, initiated Pakula's string of paranoid thrillers (The Parallax View, All the President's Men ), it's just as fruitful to see it as belonging to a trio of features (with Comes a Horseman and Rollover), each starring Fonda, that hinge on the contradictions of autonomy and emotional commitment facing would-be independent women… For once, a genuinely psychological thriller." - Paul Taylor (Time Out)
Knock on Any Door
1949, USA, 100m, BW, Crime-Social Problem Film-Courtroom Drama
Screenplay Daniel Taradash, John Monks Jr. (from the novel by Willard Motley) Producer Robert Lord Photography Burnett Guffey Editor Viola Lawrence Music George Antheil Cast Humphrey Bogart, John Derek, George Macready, Allene Roberts, Susan Perry, Mickey Knox, Barry Kelley, Dooley Wilson, Cara Williams, Jimmy Conlin.
Screenplay Daniel Taradash, John Monks Jr. (from the novel by Willard Motley) Producer Robert Lord Photography Burnett Guffey Editor Viola Lawrence Music George Antheil Cast Humphrey Bogart, John Derek, George Macready, Allene Roberts, Susan Perry, Mickey Knox, Barry Kelley, Dooley Wilson, Cara Williams, Jimmy Conlin.
"Nick Romano must be the ideal name for a flawed Ray hero-victim. As embodied to vulnerable, narcissistic perfection by John Derek (long before he took up with Bo), he's the centre of a fascinating, slightly askew mix of social document and romantic agony. The basic material may be determinist melodrama - slum boy with deck stacked against him winds up on Death Row despite the efforts of a liberal lawyer (Bogart, whose Santana company made the film). But it's hard hitting in its own right, tautly crafted, and repeatedly stabbed through with Ray's impulsive generosity and anguish towards his characters." - Tim Pulleine (Time Out)
The Kremlin Letter
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1970, USA, 113m, Col, Political-Spy-Thriller
Screenplay Gladys Hill, John Huston (based on the novel by Noel Behn) Producers Carter DeHaven, Sam Wiesenthal Photography Ted Scaife Editor Russell Lloyd Music Robert Drasnin Cast Patrick O'Neal, Richard Boone, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Barbara Parkins, George Sanders, Nigel Green, Michael MacLiammoir, Orson Welles, Ronald Radd.
1970, USA, 113m, Col, Political-Spy-Thriller
Screenplay Gladys Hill, John Huston (based on the novel by Noel Behn) Producers Carter DeHaven, Sam Wiesenthal Photography Ted Scaife Editor Russell Lloyd Music Robert Drasnin Cast Patrick O'Neal, Richard Boone, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Barbara Parkins, George Sanders, Nigel Green, Michael MacLiammoir, Orson Welles, Ronald Radd.
"Starting out as an all-star espionage saga with a state secret as the supposed Grail, this quickly reveals itself as a serpentine tale of treachery and double-dealing. What makes the film so powerful is that where before such films have generally titillated us with their stories of violence and sex in defence of one's country, Huston structures his film around such expectations, so forcing us to take account of his spies' actions. The resulting film is possibly the clearest statement of Huston's vision of a cruel and senseless world in operation." - Chris Petit (Time Out)
The 100 Most Cited Noir Films Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)