Kiss of Death (1947)

I recently watched American Gangster in the theater and began to run the plots through my head to remember where I had seen them before. There were lots of derivations but the ending made me think of 1947's Kiss of Death, the film that sprung new discovery Richard Widmark on an unsuspecting public in a performance that made viewers skin crawl. There is one scene in this film that forever typed Widmark as a psycho and he reprised the role many times over his fruitful career, one of the most chilling as the commander of a nuclear armed destroyer in the cold war thriller The Bedford Incident.

Fox has recently began to finally release their film noir catalog and Kiss of Death was one of them. Widmark is in two or three other recent Fox noir releases like Street With No Name and Panic in the Streets so he was quite a film noir icon back in the late 1940s.

The part I remembered that related to Denzel Washington’s performance was not Richard Widmark, however, but the protagonist Nick Bianco, played by star Victor Mature. I know you probably forgot him, also, but he was quite a big star and very popular with the women, too.

Nick was an unlucky gangster, doing time for a Christmas heist. His wife commits suicide, leaving his two children without parents. He has been offered the role of stool pigeon by District Attorney Brian Donlevy so he accepts and begins to walk the tightrope, protecting his children and trying to square his conscience to turn in Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark), stay alive, and stay out of jail.

Shot in New York by Henry Hathaway with cinematographer Norbert Brodine, Kiss of Death is a Christmas story, or at least it happens during Christmas so you will be staying in the Christmas spirit if you watch it. The city has a gritty texture that is softened by the snow.

Victor Mature makes a low key protagonist in keeping with his usual acting style. I know he was pretty tired of having to play under contract in the endless stream of Roman epics because of his Mediterranean looks. He also played the biblical Samson but you can skip that one. Take it from me. Hathaway toys with the viewer by bringing his sympathy over to Mature who is actually a career criminal who is ratting out his own kind. Talk about subversive. Apart from that, the screenplay is uneven and contains a lot of ambiguities that should have been worked out prior to release.

Brian Donlevy, usually a heavy, was cast against type as the good guy, the District Attorney, and Colleen Gray (Nightmare Alley) played the babysitter who watched Mature's kids and subsequently married him. The character you'll remember is fourth-billed Richard Widmark who set the standard for psychopaths for many years. You have probably seen dozens of characters derived from Widmark's character here, and that may lessen the impact if you're coming to this without much film background. Alan Ladd made a similar splash in his first outing This Gun for Hire.

The film is presented in 1.33:1 theatrical format, in black and white, and runs 98 minutes. There is a very good full length commentary by film noir historians James Ursini and Alain Silver included as an extra feature.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV