Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly (1955, United Artists) Directed by Robert Aldrich, shot by Ernest Laszlo and featuring original music by Frank DeVol is playing - in letterbox format - on TCM this month. KMD is one of the gems of the late peak noir cycle. Ralph Meeker plays Mike Hammer, who, after picking up a pretty hitchhiker, getting jumped and seeing her beaten, goes after the "great whatsit" he heard something about during the beating. The whatsit, as many of you already know, turns out to be the glowing briefcase we would later see in Pulp Fiction this time it carrying an exotic form a radium. Things get awfull messy and never really get better in this one, but it's easily the best of the Mike Hammer flicks, and Aldrich, Laszlo and DeVol as well as a swell cast made it so. Check it out.