1950s melodrama attempts to be Film Noir. Kiss Me Deadly is based on Mickey Spillane’s detective Mike Hammer. Too much melodrama and the McGuffin seems kinda silly and overwrought. Mike hammer is cruising down the highway at night and picks up a girl who is apparently crazy. They are purposely run off the road. She is killed but he miraculously survives. Now Hammer wants to find out who is responsible for her death and almost his. This leads to discovering corruption at high levels.

Ralph Meeker does OK as Hammer, but the females in this movie all overact. They swoon and act emotionally unstable. Some of the shots and music combine to show the 1950s penchant for melodrama. The film looks good and some of the story is interesting, but it ends with kind of a letdown. Still, this is one of the more famous Film Noir, so if you’re into those, you probably should watch it.

With all that against it, Kiss Me Deadly does have a couple of really interesting things in it’s favor; first, Jack Elam has a small part which I really enjoyed. Second is the technology. This is probably the earliest film I’ve seen a television in. Hollywood was firmly against television and refused to acknowledge it for many years. The TV is never turned on, but there it is, in the background, one of those cool-looking early TV sets. The other interesting technology is the answering machine. It has a big reel-to-reel tape recorder built into the wall and even says “leave your message after the beep.” I’m sure that in 1955 answering machines were very rare. We didn’t have one until the 1980s.

Overall, I don’t really recommend this film unless you’d really like to see an early answering machine.

UPDATE: I just found this very interesting story on the original ending for Kiss Me Deadly.