Film Breakdowns - Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Film Breakdowns - Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

To become the best, we have to learn from the best.

Kiss Me Deadly is all about a man trying to make heads or tails of a strange situation with a mysterious box, a girl he almost runs over and a group of people who will kill to get her and it.

One of the more stranger films as it doesn't stick to the strict rules of the world we live in. 

Let's begin breaking down my favourite frames from the film that encapsulate what I think are some of the pivotal points of importance in the story.

Let's get started!

The first time we see the female lead in the film and she is throwing herself in front of a car. The absolute desperation you must be feeling to need to risk your life just to get attention and be rescued from where you are. It sums up the character of the woman perfectly. She is someone running from something, driven by desperation.

I absolutely adore shots like this. Who is dead? Are they dead? Who are those men? Did they kill her? What did she do? This looks like a killing after an interrogation, what do they want with her? What information did she not give them that would cause her death? Did she tell them and the info was so huge she had to die?

The loyal friend of our hero is shown here through the window of the car and through a second window. He is a good man, helping our hero in his times of need but for this, he is damned for meddling in the battle between hero and villain. It foreshadows his coming death.

In this frame we can see our hero being followed by a men behind him. He stops off at various places on his walk to stop and take up some time while secretly keeping an eye on his follower. Here, the man is literally over his shoulder and he represents the antagonist figure in the film closing in and adding pressure.

The bars on the bed being in the close foreground are a nice touch to give another environment cage. The theme of captivity and lack of freedom are a constant theme in many film noir. The gun pointing at the door with the light above look gorgeous; it's very lovely framing.

The antagonist is closing in on her and the pressure is high. She is very nervous and incredibly anxious. This is shown with such elegance in this shot. With the banister blacked out in the foreground it's like we the audience are spying on her. This high angle makes her seem like an ant. She is powerless and she knows it.

He's tied to the bed? And is this the antagonist of the film? Is that why we are denied seeing his face? What is he doing? Have we see him before? Frames like this make us ask a myriad of questions that challenge the audiences understanding of the scene and make us feel apart of the mystery.

The final escape from the burning/exploding hut on the beach as they limp away from the final ordeal battered but alive. They have accomplished a daring feat of resisting the temptations of power and have been granted a new life, they are reborn a new and resurrected from the ashes. Like the frame, they start on a new path of unknown length and new experiences

This was one of the stranger film noir's I have seen in that it includes supernatural powers. We never find out what's in that box but by the looks of how it all ends, if it wasn't Pandora's box then I don't know what it could have been. A good film with twists, turns, mysteries, audience involvement and a good ending. Watch it, it's a pretty cool film!