I can't believe I've waited this long to see this noir classic, but as it concluded, I scratched my head and wondered, Had I seen this film before? Yes. Yes I had. Several times, and under several different titles. And they all contain the same protagonist: James Bond.
It's hard to believe producer/director Robert Aldrich or screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides hadn't sued United Artists for copyright infringement. From the opening shot to the last frame, every Bond film has borrowed heavily from Kiss Me Deadly. And credit cannot go to the original author of the pulp novel, Mickey Spillane. He has outright panned the film and claims it has little or nothing to do with his book.
Let's start with the opening credits, which begin a few minutes into the film: a full-screen crawl, ala Star Wars, but backwards and moving so quickly that it is near impossible to catch all the names on the screen. This must have been one of the first American films to toy with the opening credits in such a bold way, and I can see where Bond took that technique to another level.
The torture scenes that follow are unusually explicit for a film of its time. The screams carry on like those in a David Lynch film. Once our protagonist, Mike Hammer, begins his investigation into the events of that fateful night, the similarities to our British spy multiply. He seems to have little regard for women in general, and in a poolside scene littered with a bunch of gangster heavies and their molls, Hammer is greeted by one of the swimsuit-clad ladies and within minutes they are locking lips. Hammer also appears to take pleasure in inflicting pain as evidenced by the scene where he crushes a man's hand in a desk drawer. It reminded me of the fight scene in the elevator with Sean Connery.
The use of a jazz score, although not the first to do so, is very reminiscent of the early Bond films, and the scene with the nightclub singer probably inspired the Bond opening title sequence.
Probably the most obvious similarity must be in the way the final scenes played out. At the 3/4 point in the film, Hammer's right hand gal, Velda, gets kidnapped by the henchmen, like all Bond girls do, and is held captive at a secret lair. Hammer tracks her down, breaks in, is held at gunpoint and witnesses the villain's unveiling of the coveted McGuffin, in this instance, a case with a supernatural glow and ominous sounds emanating from within. The villain ultimately gets what's coming to her, the place begins to explode, Bond, I mean Hammer, goes in search of his partner, whisks her away from the inferno and they both watch as the structure burns to the ground. At that point I was half expecting a parachute to drop out of the sky with a phone attached and M on the other line.
It's hard to believe producer/director Robert Aldrich or screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides hadn't sued United Artists for copyright infringement. From the opening shot to the last frame, every Bond film has borrowed heavily from Kiss Me Deadly. And credit cannot go to the original author of the pulp novel, Mickey Spillane. He has outright panned the film and claims it has little or nothing to do with his book.
Let's start with the opening credits, which begin a few minutes into the film: a full-screen crawl, ala Star Wars, but backwards and moving so quickly that it is near impossible to catch all the names on the screen. This must have been one of the first American films to toy with the opening credits in such a bold way, and I can see where Bond took that technique to another level.
The torture scenes that follow are unusually explicit for a film of its time. The screams carry on like those in a David Lynch film. Once our protagonist, Mike Hammer, begins his investigation into the events of that fateful night, the similarities to our British spy multiply. He seems to have little regard for women in general, and in a poolside scene littered with a bunch of gangster heavies and their molls, Hammer is greeted by one of the swimsuit-clad ladies and within minutes they are locking lips. Hammer also appears to take pleasure in inflicting pain as evidenced by the scene where he crushes a man's hand in a desk drawer. It reminded me of the fight scene in the elevator with Sean Connery.
The use of a jazz score, although not the first to do so, is very reminiscent of the early Bond films, and the scene with the nightclub singer probably inspired the Bond opening title sequence.
Probably the most obvious similarity must be in the way the final scenes played out. At the 3/4 point in the film, Hammer's right hand gal, Velda, gets kidnapped by the henchmen, like all Bond girls do, and is held captive at a secret lair. Hammer tracks her down, breaks in, is held at gunpoint and witnesses the villain's unveiling of the coveted McGuffin, in this instance, a case with a supernatural glow and ominous sounds emanating from within. The villain ultimately gets what's coming to her, the place begins to explode, Bond, I mean Hammer, goes in search of his partner, whisks her away from the inferno and they both watch as the structure burns to the ground. At that point I was half expecting a parachute to drop out of the sky with a phone attached and M on the other line.
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