This week’s topic of cold in the Movie Monday is easily answered with one of the most nihilistic movies I’ve seen. And an old one at that: Robert Aldrich’s 1955 take on a Mickey Spillane pulp novel: Kiss Me Deadly.
Mike Hammer’s journey through the seedier side of Los Angeles is film noir extreme. Bad things happen, but rarely to good people. Since there are very few of those in the movie. Ralph Meeker’s protagonist has been given a truckload of bad habits – in the books he is not as sadistic a character as he is made out to be in the film.
The plot has been changed a lot from the original, but the alterations are necessary to accommodate the presence of a briefcase macguffin. A plot device that has been homaged in many films since: Repo Man and Pulp Fiction to name the obvious duo.
The movie oozes indifferent violence and fifties paranoia – secrets are worth killing for, and ultimately lethal for everybody concerned.
Couldn’t find a proper trailer, and the top hit on youtube, a collection of clips attached here, is about as spoilery as they get.
Movie Monday #25: Cold.
More than 50 years, unbelievable…