Killer's Kiss

Serving as writer, director, cinematographer, and editor, Stanley Kubrick made Killer’s Kiss, his second feature and first of two noirs, on a practically nonexistent budget, which resulted in less-than-stellar acting and dialogue but also forced him to use his camera with the kind of inventiveness that would later burnish his reputation. The unknown Jamie Smith plays boxer Davey Gordon who falls head over heels for his pretty blond neighbor across the way, taxi dancer Gloria Price (Irene Kane), after rescuing her from an assault by her employer-lover Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera). When Davey and Gloria prepare to run off together, Rapallo and his thugs escalate to kidnapping, murder, and more. For Kubrick’s part, by using lush shadows in nearly every scene, he pumps out atmosphere while minimizing production expense: note, for example, the boxing match or ballet flashback where crowds are merely implied beyond the black opacity. On-location night exteriors bring a layer of realism that occasionally morphs into the apocalyptic, such as the hulking, watchful buildings surrounding a totally empty city street. The late sequence in a mannequin warehouse (not the first noir to feature such a backdrop; see Don Siegel’s 1951 M) is like a final shootout, but without guns; in fact, the makeshift swords and spears — designed from mannequin limbs, among other objects — lend the whole scene a quasi-medieval spirit.