Kiss Me Deadly

Yeah.

which i think is a great movie and if i was talking about two of my favorites one of them would definitely be kiss me deadly it's near perfect actually it's a great movie it has great acting it has great scenes it has that cynicism if people want to talk about cynicism and of course it's an existential movie as well because of the topics that underlie you know but everything from that sort of opening crucifix scene stopping the car you know it's

yeah it's

just a beautiful movie

But you could actually talk about things, you know, sexual things, dark psychology, all these sorts of things that actually you wouldn't otherwise really be able to get away with.

I think that's brilliant.

No, no, Kiss Me Deadly is fantastic.

Utterly bizarre and unique.

He went on to be in some big titles.

After Hawks' monkey business the next year, 1952, he was in 1953, War of the Worlds, along with some classics by Robert Aldrich, the tough noir Kiss Me Deadly, and a thriller that we've reviewed, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

Mr.

Newsman here, Douglas Spencer, was never a movie star, but he was in some big movies.

And about what huge deals Martin Lewis were got me thinking about another dominant cultural figure of the 50s who has mostly completely faded from memory, Mickey Spillane.

I'd love to hear you two talk about the other Spillane movies besides Kiss Me Deadly.

Have you ever seen the one, I think it's the Girl Hunters that Mickey Spillane stars in? No.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the Girl Hunters, 1963.

OK, well, I got to watch that.

I mean, obviously, I like Kiss Me Deadly.

Yeah.

Today's offering is perhaps the strangest film of the 1950s so far, [upbeat music] which is saying something since we started with Robot Monster.

Today's offering is Kiss Me Deadly, based on the novel by Mickey Spillane.

So perhaps this cinematic conversation will feel more literary than our first two Schlocktoberfest discussions this year.

But probably not.

Yeah, this was a movie...

I wonder how the hell I haven't seen this before.

I bought this on a whim when Criterion released it on DVD years back, and I was like, Kiss Me Deadly, the thriller of tomorrow, because as usual, I'm, not to bemoan the 1950s, but it's not necessarily my favorite decade for movies.

It's funny 'cause this movie, I was just looking at the Wikipedia page, and apparently this movie was condemned by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which is another reason why I can't stand the 1950s, how they went after comics, and apparently this got thrown in with that, because it's good.

He's Bernie Jenks in The Night Stalker.

Uh, Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly.

Yeah.

Dillinger in Dillinger.

It, it's really hard to pull off.

Not Kiss Me Deadly.

It is the other, it's the other one that we did with-

Oh, that woman has worked a lot.

The Ida Lupino, uh, picture.

Why, I don't know why it, it just took me a while for me to figure it out the fuck out.

Are you sure it wasn't Kiss Me Deadly? Because she was in that.

Oh, yeah.