***The Big Cold War Scorch- Mickey
Spillane’s Kiss Me Deadly
DVD Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Kiss Me Deadly, starring Ralph Meeker, directed by Robert Aldrich, based on the crime novel of the same name by Mickey Spillane, 1955
There was a palpable fear in the land, in this American land, in the post- World War II red scare Cold War night. A fear of commies, some of Uncle Joe’s friends, Joe Stalin, the man of steel for those who don’t remember, were too young or not born, who during the war we were buddy-buddy allies with but in the aftermath when the spoils were divided and who was going to be king of the hill, or rather what system was going to push the humankind rock up the hill got decided they went their way, we went ours. There were other fears as well, some palpable, like the thought going back to those from hunger days just when the car payments and mortgage were due and cash was short and getting restless with the boredom of normalcy, some now seemingly irrational like alien invasions from other planets or various crazes like hula-hoops and Pat Boone white bucks, or just Pat Boone.
Except, rational or not, there was a new factor in the world equation, the new-found man-made capacity to annihilate half the planet, or something like that, with a few high explosive atom/hydrogen-kinked bombs. The USA had them first, had the franchise, had the secrets stored away under lock and key in I don’t know, Los Alamos I guess but Uncle Joe and his boys grabbed onto the fast track very quickly. And people in high places and low were looking to find out how such a travesty happened. So good honest unassumingly American citizens were looking for, were egged on to look for “reds under the beds,” and every good citizen-youth was to turn without question to the proper authorities every “mommy who was a commie.” So some, actually a lot, of people got caught up in the dragnet, got thrown out of their unions (many of which they helped create, had fought tooth and nail for, including beatings and jail time while their persecutors had held back from the fight), got thrown out of colleges and other public institution for wearing tweet jackets and smoking pipes, spouting stuff about critical thinking or something like that, got blacklisted from the great cultural institutions like the movies, the stage, the music hall, got thrown in jail if they got too uppity in front on some yahoo committee, and took the big step-off in the case of the heroic Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Like other times, too many times in American and world history it did not pay to stick your neck out, stick it out at all. Of course the whole operation was oiled by the willingness, in some cases eagerness, of good American citizens to, well let’s call a thing by its right name, fink on their fellows, play stoolie to get out from under whatever Uncle, in this case Uncle Sam had on them. Not a pretty time in those lush black and white 1950s.
Now what does all of this talk of the red scare Cold War night, the night of the long knives in America, have to do with a film, a classic film noir of its type according to some sources, a film like that under review, Kiss Me Deadly. A film which had been based strictly on second-rate pulp fiction from the pen of macho he-man crime novel writer Mickey Spillane. Novels known more for the travails of scantily-clad busty come hither forbidden blondes on the paperback book cover. Well threatening jail, threatening the big step-off, threatening the blacklist, and threatening every other form of coercion to create deadly conformity is not the only way to gather in the flock. The cultural institutions, particularly popular cultural institutions, were dragooned into the service of cornering Uncle Joe and his minions as well. Film was a simple way, a didactic way if you will, to do such propaganda work from creating that now seemingly irrational scary addiction to alien sci-fi movies as surrogates for foreign-ness where the good citizens of this country were threatened with being robbed of their person-hood to those the theme in this film of presenting characters crafty enough to see that if you controlled a piece of something like radioactive material you could hold the world hostage, either for cash or power, or both. Who also were ruthless enough to do what it took to gain the edge.
And aiding that fight against the bad guys of the geo-political world is where Mickey Spillane’s macho detective, Mike Hammer, a guy usually working the low-end night life scene sneaking under the bed scene, working the adultery racket, sometimes on both ends, while feeling up busty comely dames gets to step up in class and work to rid the world of those crafty evil geniuses who would enslave the whole American way of life. Of course Hammer didn’t go down to his local FBI office and offer up his services but was almost accidently brought into the action by a wooly-headed blonde who desperately tried to hitch a ride away from her troubles and put trouble right on Hammer’s doorstep. Put the trouble there the minute he picked her up. See she knew too much, and she knew she knew too much and that while maybe she was wooly-headed she had been around the block, had been involved with some rough customers who would stop at nothing to protect their interest. She knew about a certain box in a certain suitcase which contained power and the glory and that was enough to get her killed by unknown sources. And drag Hammer down with her when the bad guys decided that the old car over the cliff, Hammer’s, would take care of their problem.
Problem was Hammer lived to tell the tale, lived and got very curious when lots of things did not add up and those near and dear to him started to get dead, very dead, or were in imminent threat of death. And that included his busty brunette assistant, adultery lure, secretary, lover Velma who only had eyes for cad lady-killer Hammer. But that love ‘em and leave ‘em business was secondary stuff because Hammer had to move mountains to find enough leads to figure out that the Pandora ’s Box he was chasing could fall into the wrong hands, fall into criminal or what amounted to the same thing in those days, wrong political hands. And narrowing down the number of possible beneficiaries and the location of the box took up the rest of his time, his movie time. With the kidnapping of Velma taken as a hostage when he got too close acting as a spur for him to solve the whole thing. In the end, naturally, as dictated by Hollywood film noir ethos the bad guys had to take a tumble. And in this case they took the tumble in a spectacular visual film-ending manner which nevertheless left the original audience wondering how safe they were in this wicked old world. Yeah, the guy who said it was right, classic 1950s film noir stuff.
DVD Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Kiss Me Deadly, starring Ralph Meeker, directed by Robert Aldrich, based on the crime novel of the same name by Mickey Spillane, 1955
There was a palpable fear in the land, in this American land, in the post- World War II red scare Cold War night. A fear of commies, some of Uncle Joe’s friends, Joe Stalin, the man of steel for those who don’t remember, were too young or not born, who during the war we were buddy-buddy allies with but in the aftermath when the spoils were divided and who was going to be king of the hill, or rather what system was going to push the humankind rock up the hill got decided they went their way, we went ours. There were other fears as well, some palpable, like the thought going back to those from hunger days just when the car payments and mortgage were due and cash was short and getting restless with the boredom of normalcy, some now seemingly irrational like alien invasions from other planets or various crazes like hula-hoops and Pat Boone white bucks, or just Pat Boone.
Except, rational or not, there was a new factor in the world equation, the new-found man-made capacity to annihilate half the planet, or something like that, with a few high explosive atom/hydrogen-kinked bombs. The USA had them first, had the franchise, had the secrets stored away under lock and key in I don’t know, Los Alamos I guess but Uncle Joe and his boys grabbed onto the fast track very quickly. And people in high places and low were looking to find out how such a travesty happened. So good honest unassumingly American citizens were looking for, were egged on to look for “reds under the beds,” and every good citizen-youth was to turn without question to the proper authorities every “mommy who was a commie.” So some, actually a lot, of people got caught up in the dragnet, got thrown out of their unions (many of which they helped create, had fought tooth and nail for, including beatings and jail time while their persecutors had held back from the fight), got thrown out of colleges and other public institution for wearing tweet jackets and smoking pipes, spouting stuff about critical thinking or something like that, got blacklisted from the great cultural institutions like the movies, the stage, the music hall, got thrown in jail if they got too uppity in front on some yahoo committee, and took the big step-off in the case of the heroic Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Like other times, too many times in American and world history it did not pay to stick your neck out, stick it out at all. Of course the whole operation was oiled by the willingness, in some cases eagerness, of good American citizens to, well let’s call a thing by its right name, fink on their fellows, play stoolie to get out from under whatever Uncle, in this case Uncle Sam had on them. Not a pretty time in those lush black and white 1950s.
Now what does all of this talk of the red scare Cold War night, the night of the long knives in America, have to do with a film, a classic film noir of its type according to some sources, a film like that under review, Kiss Me Deadly. A film which had been based strictly on second-rate pulp fiction from the pen of macho he-man crime novel writer Mickey Spillane. Novels known more for the travails of scantily-clad busty come hither forbidden blondes on the paperback book cover. Well threatening jail, threatening the big step-off, threatening the blacklist, and threatening every other form of coercion to create deadly conformity is not the only way to gather in the flock. The cultural institutions, particularly popular cultural institutions, were dragooned into the service of cornering Uncle Joe and his minions as well. Film was a simple way, a didactic way if you will, to do such propaganda work from creating that now seemingly irrational scary addiction to alien sci-fi movies as surrogates for foreign-ness where the good citizens of this country were threatened with being robbed of their person-hood to those the theme in this film of presenting characters crafty enough to see that if you controlled a piece of something like radioactive material you could hold the world hostage, either for cash or power, or both. Who also were ruthless enough to do what it took to gain the edge.
And aiding that fight against the bad guys of the geo-political world is where Mickey Spillane’s macho detective, Mike Hammer, a guy usually working the low-end night life scene sneaking under the bed scene, working the adultery racket, sometimes on both ends, while feeling up busty comely dames gets to step up in class and work to rid the world of those crafty evil geniuses who would enslave the whole American way of life. Of course Hammer didn’t go down to his local FBI office and offer up his services but was almost accidently brought into the action by a wooly-headed blonde who desperately tried to hitch a ride away from her troubles and put trouble right on Hammer’s doorstep. Put the trouble there the minute he picked her up. See she knew too much, and she knew she knew too much and that while maybe she was wooly-headed she had been around the block, had been involved with some rough customers who would stop at nothing to protect their interest. She knew about a certain box in a certain suitcase which contained power and the glory and that was enough to get her killed by unknown sources. And drag Hammer down with her when the bad guys decided that the old car over the cliff, Hammer’s, would take care of their problem.
Problem was Hammer lived to tell the tale, lived and got very curious when lots of things did not add up and those near and dear to him started to get dead, very dead, or were in imminent threat of death. And that included his busty brunette assistant, adultery lure, secretary, lover Velma who only had eyes for cad lady-killer Hammer. But that love ‘em and leave ‘em business was secondary stuff because Hammer had to move mountains to find enough leads to figure out that the Pandora ’s Box he was chasing could fall into the wrong hands, fall into criminal or what amounted to the same thing in those days, wrong political hands. And narrowing down the number of possible beneficiaries and the location of the box took up the rest of his time, his movie time. With the kidnapping of Velma taken as a hostage when he got too close acting as a spur for him to solve the whole thing. In the end, naturally, as dictated by Hollywood film noir ethos the bad guys had to take a tumble. And in this case they took the tumble in a spectacular visual film-ending manner which nevertheless left the original audience wondering how safe they were in this wicked old world. Yeah, the guy who said it was right, classic 1950s film noir stuff.
