FADE OUT OF THE DARKNESS, BUT KISS ME DEADLY FIRST

Well, this is it. I’ve been touting it all month, and now it’s the final three days of Film Forum’s fantastic “Essential Noir” series, and while there are four films being shown (two today and tomorrow and two more on Thursday), there is one which is by far the most important. And no, I’m not talking about Strangers on a Train, a fantastic film in its own right and one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best.

Instead, I want to focus my attention on Robert Aldrich’s brilliant noir classic, Kiss Me Deadly (<screening with Strangers on a Train today and tomorrow) which introduced another iconic character to the film firmament, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. (Actually, a really crappy version of Spillane’s Hammer book I, the Jury came out two years before, but I’m not counting it.) This isn’t the same Hammer you and I remember from the mid-’80s, a somewhat toned down version with Stacy Keach playing the title role. Previous noir main characters were choir boys compared to the Hammer given to us by Aldrich through the guise of actor Ralph Meeker. Dashiell Hammett’s Spade and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe aren’t morally ambiguous in the least when put side-by-side with Hammer.

Spillane’s Mike Hammer was a true anti-hero, and never more so than in Aldrich’s film. His name is his character: hard, unyielding, and ready to nail anything in his way. In Hammer’s world, he and his own well-being comes first. He created the stereotype of the tough-guy detective who doesn’t pay attention to the grander right and wrong as long as it’s right for him. He’s American through-and-through, and in 1950s America, that means there’s nothing worse than a Red. He’s also as misogynistic as they come, treating every woman as poorly as possible, but not caring because he knows another dame is around the corner. He even pimps his own secretary (who, of course loves him and will do anything for him) in order to entrap cheating husbands. In Kiss Me Deadly, he tries to save a woman and then find her killers, but more because he’s been made a fool rather than any altruistic feelings.

Kiss Me Deadly is one of the bleakest and in some ways most depressing of all noirs. It is a film of the atomic age, made in an era where the only thing that scared this country more than Communists was the USSR destroying the US with a nuclear bomb. Those fears come to play in Kiss Me Deadly, albeit in somewhat bizarre fashion. The ending (or endings since there are two that are very similar except for a couple shots which actually do change a great deal – which one Film Forum will screen, I’m not sure) will either make you sigh, gasp or become really upset. Whatever the case, Kiss Me Deadly is more than simply “essential” noir. It’s noir at its darkest and most dangerous. It’s the real world turned upside down – finding the blurred line between good and evil is almost impossible because in this film, everyone is on the wrong side of good, just to varying degrees. But in this noir world – a world reflecting a 1950s America where we masked its fear in idealism and tried to hide its dark side, not so different from what we’re seeing now – there are no happy endings because the modern world doesn’t provide them.

Kiss Me Deadly is definitely the don’t miss highlight of these final three days, but that doesn’t mean Thursday’s series close is shabby – a twin bill of films by the great Jules Dassin. I’ve never actually seen Thieves Highway, but Night and the City is one of the more famous noirs, featuring a great performance by Richard Widmark, a hustler and dreamer whose every get-rich-quick scheme simply gets him in trouble. When he tries to get involved in the corrupt Greco-roman wrestling market in London, he takes one step too far. Dassin’s Night and the City is a great character study and fantastic film, and if you happened to see the 1992 remake with Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange, you owe it to yourself to see the original (and try to forget the absolutely terrible Irwin Winkler version).

I have to congratulate Film Forum again on putting together such a great series. Sure, there were plenty of great films omitted – In a Lonely Place, The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The Set-Up, White Heat, The Third Man (which Film Forum recently showed in a separate engagement) and the beautiful (and incredibly influential) John Alton-lensed T-Men and Raw Deal – but overall it’s hard to fault any of the selections. If you weren’t able to get to Film Forum (or are unlucky enough to not live in NYC), most of these films are available on video. If you want a starter set, I’d suggest Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, The Killers, Touch of Evil and, if you’re ready for it, Kiss Me Deadly. Add to that The Maltese Falcon (to see how from where these other films grew) and The Lost Weekend (because it’s just so damn good, even if it’s only tangentially noir), and you’ve got yourself a private film festival well-worth your time.

(Some people will tell you that Sunset Blvd. – my personal all-time favorite movie – also fits into the noir style. While it does come from that period and includes some elements generally attributed to noir — especially regarding the story told as flashback, the moral ambiguity of a main character down-on-his luck and hopeless, and the story’s denouement – I still tend to separate it from other noirs. If anything, it’s almost more of a veiled monster movie. But that’s a discussion for another time!)