Killer's Kiss

1955
Directed By Stanley Kubrick



SYNOPSIS

A washed-up boxer (Jamie Smith) sees a woman (Irene Kane) being abused and tries to stop her attacker. He gets to know her and falls in love. Her attacker is her employer/boyfriend (Frank Silvera) and tries to have the boxer killed. Instead, his goons kill the boxer's manager. Now the boxer is wanted for his boss' murder... and his girl has disappeared.

MY THOUGHTS


Stanley Kubrick's second film definitely shows the promise of his immense talents. Not only does he direct, but he wrote the screenplay, shot the film, edited it, and co-produced it. It's a B-movie both by budget and run-time... but far exceeds your average production.

Stanley Kubrick had already done a short film on boxing called Day Of The Fight, so he was well versed in the subject for a launching point for the film:




The boxing scenes in Killer's Kiss show this, but they are only a small part of the overall film.

The low budget limits the acting quality and the film's short run-time limit the character development. These keep the film from developing truly great and interesting characters. The awesome camerawork and location shooting makes up for these shortcomings a bit. The camerawork evokes the best of film noir and Kubrick was able to light these actual locations to great stylish effect. The climactic chase scene is the highlight of the film.

The film is not in the same league with Kubrick's later work, but is still an interesting piece of film history.