Kiss of Death

3 1/2 stars. This is one of a number of on-location thrillers (House on 92nd Street, Dark Corner, Boomerang, Call Northside 777) made by Twentieth Century Fox after World War II. In this case too, on location filming and a razor-sharp script produced a first-rate suspenser. Mature showed his mettle as a good actor, and Widmark in his debut played a skull-faced ,giggling, almost moronic psycopathic hood with such glee that he still remains in the memory of many film buffs. The whole movie was so well done that one wonders if the 1995 remake was really necessary.

20th Century Fox presents "KISS OF DEATH" (1947) (98 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- A gritty tale of deceit and manipulation filmed with an almost documentary-style realism, this hard-edged noir thriller stars Victor Mature as a gangster who takes the rap for a jewelery-store heist to protect his wife and children --- But when his friends on the outside fail to honor their promise, he turns the tables on the mob and works with the FBI to incriminate the men who helped put him away --- Richard Widmark debuts as the evil mobster with the manic laugh.

Noir doesn't get any better than this classic film --- Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Widmark) & Best Original Story.

Under the production staff of:
Henry Hathaway [Director]
Ben Hecht [ Screenwriter]
Charles Lederer [Screenwriter]
Eleazar Lipsky [Story]
Fred Kohlmar [Producer]
David Buttolph [Original Film Score]
Norbert Brodine [Cinematographer]
J. Watson Webb Jr.[Film Editor]

BIOS:
1. Henry Hathaway [aka: Marquis Henri Leonard de Fiennes] - [Director]
Date of Birth: 13 March 1898 - Sacramento, California
Date of Death: 11 February 1985 - Hollywood, California

2. Victor Mature [aka: Victor John Mature]
Date of Birth: 29 January 1913 - Louisville, Kentucky
Date of Death: 4 August 1999 - Rancho Santa Fe, California

3. Brian Donlevy [aka: Waldo Brian Donlevy]
Date of Birth: 9 February 1901 - Cleveland, Ohio
Date of Death: 5 April 1972 - Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California

4. Richard Widmark [aka: Richard Weedt Widmark]
Date of Birth: 26 December 1914 - Sunrise Township, Minnesota
Date of Death: 24 March 2008 - Roxbury, Connecticut

5..Coleen Gray [aka: Doris Bernice Jensen]
Date of Birth: 23 October 1922 - Staplehurst, Nebraska
Date of Death: Still Living

the cast includes:
Victor Mature - Nick Bianco
Brian Donlevy - Assistant D.A. Louis D'Angelo
Coleen Gray - Nettie
Richard Widmark - Tommy Udo
Taylor Holmes - Earl Howser--Attorney
Howard Smith - Warden
Karl Malden - Sgt. William Cullen
Anthony Ross - 'Big Ed' Williams

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 5 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 98 min on DVD ~ 20th Century Fox ~ (12/06/2005)

It was a nice December day in Dark City (in this movie, Dark City takes the name of New York City). "Christmas is a happy time - for the lucky ones," we are informed via a voiceover by Nettie, Nick's second wife, played to smarmy imperfection by Coleen Gray. We follow a guy named Nick Bianco who looks like he just ate something that didn't really taste good (Victor Mature) and some of his trench-coated buddies into a huge twenty-story building. We know, of course, that they're criminals. Not only do they look the part, but we have been told rather ominously by Coleen that, "this is how Nick goes Christmas shopping for his kids" after she already showed us Nick's futile attempts to go straight and get an honest job. That just shows you; a clean slate is worth a lot.

Needless to say, they get caught; or, rather, Nick gets caught. His buddies had the brains, at least, not to start pushing past the police after the heist, which is why Nick found himself locked in the slammer on the way to Sing Sing with the district attorney Louie DeAngelo (Brian Donlevy) trying to convince him to squeal on his accomplices in return for a parole.

But Nick doesn't squeal - I suppose because he's afraid he'll get in trouble for breaking the criminal code, or something. Of course, as DeAngelo points out, his wife and kids get a pretty rotten deal out of the whole thing, but Nick doesn't say a word, not even while he's waiting in a local cell with a psychotic gunsel named Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) who is tittering some dark plans for the warden of the jail.

We think we've seen the last of Tommy after Nick arrives in Sing Sing, but, unfortunately for Nick, there's more to come. His wife has committed suicide because she was running out of money and his children have been sent to an orphanage. ("It's a good one, though," Nick is reassured by Nettie who is visiting him in Sing Sing. This is also one of two scenes where she cries explosively over him.)

One thing leads to another, and Nick finally begins to realize that maybe squealing on his sidekicks isn't such a bad idea after all. At first things seem to be going all right - until Tommy Udo gets involved. Even then, Nick is safe for the moment. One of the top criminals (who happens, by the way, to be Nick's defense lawyer) is worried by the sudden rash of squealing that seems to be going on. Thanks to DeAngelo, Nick is free from suspicion and the defense lawyer thinks that it's one of the guys who was part of the jewel thief. Frantically, he dials up some guy saying that he has to speak to Tommy Udo. The next thing we know, we're following Tommy into an old tenement and we see him not only push an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs, but giggle the whole time.

And after Nick is used as the primary witness in a murder trial in which DeAngelo is trying to get Tommy convicted for a murder that he committed, he knows exactly who the real squealer is. That would have been all right if it hadn't been that the defense team did their job a little too well and Tommy got away - and that's when the excitement begins.

This movie is classic noir suspense at its best. But anyone who has watched this movie will agree that without Richard Widmark's fantastic performance as the crazy gangster Tommy Udo, this movie would never have achieved its status of 'classic' that it has now. But, though it's hard to believe, the director Henry Hathaway didn't want Richard in the role of Tommy. He thought he looked to intelligent and 'high-brow' for the part. Needless to say, though, not everyone agreed with Hathaway's point-of-view, and Widmark got the part.

Fraternities set up Tommy Udo fan clubs and I suppose you could argue that it was one of those movies that became a cult classic practically overnight. Of course, not everyone was thrilled with Tommy. Some women actually slapped Richard in the face saying, "Take that, you squirt!" - a reaction that doesn't really make sense when you remember how Dan Duryea, whose characters were pretty nasty pieces of work themselves and didn't have any qualms about slapping women around, was flooded with female fan letters.

Perhaps the best description of Tommy should be left to James Agee who described him as "a rather frail fellow with maniacal eyes and a sinister kind of baby talk laced with tittering laughs. It is clear that murder is one of the kindest things he is capable of."