Following the murder of a beautiful woman he picked up from the road, private dick Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) finds himself the object of scrutiny from both the law, and other parties.
Sniffing money, Hammer decides to pick up the trail from the murdered woman - a fateful decision for which he will have to pay a heavy price.
With the nuclear threat back at the forefront of world attention, and the seemingly rapid collapse of the American empire, Kiss Me Deadly’s apocalyptic satire feels all the more evergreen.
I have watched it a couple of times. This last viewing is the one where I have liked it the most.
In fact this screening was something of a revelation.
I was hit by the arctic nothingness at the core of the film’s central character: Hammer’s thirst to profit from the ‘great whatsit’ is so pure.
As the movie hurtles toward the apocalyptic finale, it all becomes so meaningless - from Albert Dekker’s overly articulate villain, to Mike’s scheme to cash in on whatever he can.
It is a small consolation that Hammer is just less hypocritical than the people around him.
If my previous experiences with the film sound subpar, I remember being underwhelmed by Ralph Meeker on my first viewing - he seemed small, and lacking in charisma. I do not know what I was expecting, but for some reason, he was a block.
Not this time!
Meeker is pure venom. With the presence of a thug, or schoolyard bully, he stalks through the film like a predator. He brings a certain low cunning, but his Hammer lives up to his name. He has clear, simple goals (get rich, everyone else be damned).
Visually, he is striking: with his lantern jaw and eyes like the viewing slits in a helmet, he looks like a human tank. That big mouth - either smirking or grimacing - is a major asset as he interrogates his way through witnesses, suspects and anyone else who gets in his way.
The whole movie sets him up as both a traditional gumshoe and an evisceration.
He fights his way through the movie, becoming less of a detective and more of a bully.
There are two great scenes showcasing Hammer’s MO: in the first, he alphas his way through a witness’s home, poking around his belongings, drinking his drink, and finally, snapping his prized record.
In a later scene, Hammer runs into the coroner who turns out to be as craven as he is. After rebuffing the coroner’s demand for a bribe, Hammer looks beat - and then he jams the coroner’s hand in his desk.
It is at this point, we get the one emotion we have not seen Mike express: glee.
He seems genuinely excited by the pain he is causing.
After following Hammer for the length of the movie, the ending seems inevitable, an exclamation point on his selfish quest.
The only character who is equal in his greed and lack of forethought is Lily (Gaby Rodgers), the Pandora who opens the box and unleashes Armageddon.
The ending is so final, it turns the film into an evisceration of the genre - it is easy to see why so many critics treat it as the endpoint for film noir.
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