Kiss Me Deadly (1955) on Netflix
NR19551h 46mCrimeMysteryThriller
Mike Hammer gives Christina, a psychiatric hospital escapee, a ride. Thugs force his car off the road and kill her. He investigates for revenge and hopes something big is behind it.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.5/1023,969 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
Mike Hammer is a private investigator in Los Angeles who usually handles penny-ante divorce cases with his associate and lover Velda. One evening he gives a ride to Christina, an escapee from a psychiatric hospital who is running along the road in only a trench coat. Thugs force his car off the road, and he hears Christina tortured to death before he loses consciousness. When he wakes in a hospital, he decides to investigate her murder, convinced it is connected with something big. He recovers a book of poetry from her apartment, reading lines from Rossetti's 'Remember' as he tries to understand what she wanted him to remember.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency condemned the film, accusing it of being designed to ruin young viewers, and director Robert Aldrich protested the verdict.
SPOILER
After its first release, the film's negative was altered to remove 82 seconds showing Mike Hammer and Velda escaping the burning house, implying they died; the original ending was restored in 1997 after Glenn Erickson found the footage in the Directors Guild vaults.- Screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides said he wrote the script fast because he had contempt for it, and that Mickey Spillane disliked what he did with his novel after the two ran into each other at a restaurant.
- François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard both acknowledged the film's influence, and in the 1960s the pair called it the single American film most responsible for the French New Wave.
SPOILER
The glowing suitcase was paid homage in Alex Cox's Repo Man, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and John Frankenheimer's Ronin, and the melting face of Rene Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark was directly inspired by Gabrielle opening the suitcase.- Two rock acts borrowed the film's title for songs: Billy Idol's punk band Generation X on their 1978 debut album, and a 1988 hit single by Lita Ford, formerly lead guitarist of the Runaways.
