167. Kiss Me Deadly

Song - Twilight Zone (Golden Earring)

Movie: Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

"You have only one real lasting love. You. You're one of those self-indulgent males who thinks about nothing, but his clothes, his car, himself. Bet you do push-ups every morning just to keep your belly hard."  

Christina Bailey (Clorlis Leachmann) correctly pegs Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) merely a couple minutes after he has picked her up from the side of a dark empty road. Mike is a private detective who together with his exasperated assistant/lover Velda (Maxine Cooper, somehow her only major role)  specialises in divorce cases/adultery. They are essentially double agents, seducing the partners of their clients and sending the recording as proof they've solved the case. The money is good, so is the sex. The film takes great pleasure in showing the sexual, erotic attraction between Velda and Mike and her provocatively seductive behavior. It takes even greater pleasure in showing contempt to the mores of its times. 

Velda and Mike are of course hated by the 'serious' police detectives and polite society. But the film always remains on their side. It agrees with Christina's assessment of Mike, but ultimately sees it as more of a compliment than an insult. It works, thanks to Meeker's brilliant performance, (it reminded me of Jack Nicholson's early and greatest roles) portraying his arrogance, confidence and manly self-indulgence as an expression of his anti-establishment attitude. It's that attitude which makes makes him a man of the people, who will not turn over the distressed Christina, an escapee from a psychiatric institution, over to the authorities, nearly leading to his death. And it's that attitude that makes him stick his teeth into the mysterious case that has led to the death of Christina and the disappearance of many others, despite the fact it's never clear what he'll gain from solving the case. He just can't stand the powerful getting away with it, even if he doesn't exactly know what 'it' is.

It's an attitude the film sees as necessary and moral but ultimately pointless. The establishment is corrupt and out to crush you, and it eventually will. All you can do is follow your own rules and make bonds with the other lowlifes of society. Those include a Greek car mechanic, an Italian home-mover, a failed opera singer forced to perform for an audience of one in run-down apartments, and a black boxing trainer terrified for his life. Mike's cocky attitude softens in the presence of these people. He becomes friendlier, treating them with affection and concern, even occasionally allowing himself to show fear when they are in danger. The film has a genuine love for these forgotten members of a multicultural working class and their need to bond together in solidarity against the special interests of the police, high society and the government. Those special interests are in the end a bit too much of a McGuffin for my taste. I perhaps would have wished for a little bit more background in the motivations of the film's villains, but am not sure that this would have led to a better film. It definitely wouldn't have made the final scenes as eerie and haunting as they are.