Stanley Kubrick wanted to shoot his 1955 sophomore feature, Killer’s Kiss, with sync sound, but the filmmaker scrapped the idea upon learning that the required equipment would disrupt his ability to frame shadows to his liking. This consideration for the image above all else can be felt throughout the film, which, while marking only a nominal improvement in terms of story and dialogue from Kubrick’s debut feature, Fear and Desire, is more accomplished in its compositions and scene construction. For one, the use of voiceover in Killer’s Kiss is less crude and incessant, but it’s the grittiness of the New York City settings and Kubrick’s poetic rendering of his flailing pugilist protagonist’s desperation and solitude that makes for the film’s most indelible moments.
Davy’s (Jamie Smith) struggles are cut from a familiar noir cloth. He lives in squalor, barely eking out a career as a boxer, as his best days are behind him. And when a violent encounter brings him into the immediate orbit of his neighbor across the way, a dance hall hostess named Gloria (Irene Kane), and her vicious, controlling boss, Vincent (Frank Silvera), viewers may feel as if they can set their clocks to the machinations of a familiar plot kicking into motion as Davy goes on to play the woman’s savior.
Ultimately, Kubrick is less interested in offering a fresh dimension to a familiar story than in using its narrative scaffolding as an occasion for often thrilling aesthetic play. In an early scene where Davy, sitting at home, stares across the way into Gloria’s apartment, Kubrick frames one shot so that the peeping tom’s reflection appears in his window, as if to suggest the ghost of the boxer’s former self standing between the future lovers. Then, after Davy’s phone rings, Kubrick cuts to a reverse-angle shot where we see Gloria, now reflected in Davy’s bureau mirror, appearing deeper in the frame and further distanced from the boxer.
Elsewhere, certain shots feel amateurish, and in the case of one where Davy’s distorted face is glimpsed through a fish bowl as he stares into the camera, the representation of his mental state is a little on the nose. But the attention to detail that’s often on display throughout Killer’s Kiss, in the set design, framing, lighting, and use of locations, is a striking portend of the meticulousness that would soon come to define Kubrick’s work.
Meanwhile, the visceral and ferocious boxing match that takes place early in the film (a notable influence on Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull), along with the thrillingly bizarre finale in a mannequin factory, certainly anticipate Kubrick’s preoccupation with the impact of violence on the human psyche. If these sequences are far scrappier and less thematically rich than anything in his upcoming work, they still find Kubrick pushing beyond the confines of genre into something more symbolically potent and visually distinct. Killer’s Kiss may often feel like a rough sketch of a Kubrick film, but it bares enough of an imprint of his future style and themes to remain an intriguing early entry in the career of one of America’s greatest directors.
Image/Sound
The Criterion Collection’s 2019 presentation of Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour set the bar for just how stunning a B noir could look on home video, but Kino Lorber’s 4K transfer of Killer’s Kiss gives that release a run for its money. The depth and clarity of the image highlights the beauty and precision of Stanley Kubrick’s cinematography, particularly the location shooting throughout New York City, as well as the brutal, almost expressionistic boxing scene. Black levels are equally impressive, benefitting not only the more blatantly shadow-laden scenes, but also the more somber, melancholy ones. On the other hand, the audio is merely serviceable, with both on-screen dialogue and the voiceover sounding consistently tinny, though Gerald Fried’s orchestral score fortunately fares much better.
Extras
In a typically engaging and well-researched commentary track, critic Imogen Sara Smith pulls no punches in addressing the film’s more glaring faults and it being conceived by Kubrick as a calling card. But she also makes a compelling case for the power of the director’s image-making, which is evident even on a Poverty Row budget. Smith also discusses Kubrick’s work as a photographer for Look magazine and nicely connects his tendency to shoot New Yorkers in enclosed spaces to his work on Killer’s Kiss, particularly the scenes in Davy and Gloria’s cramped apartments. The only other extra included is a theatrical trailer.
Overall
Killer’s Kiss may be lesser Kubrick, but a fantastic commentary track and sparkling new 4K transfer from Kino Lorber make this an essential release.
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