Killer's Kiss

Plot synopsis:
In the main hall at New York's Pennsylvania Station, Davy Gordon (Jamie Smith), a young boxer, sits waiting for his train as he recalls the last few days...Living alone in a small apartment, he becomes attracted to a young woman, named Gloria Price (Irene Kane), who leads a no less solitary existence across the courtyard of his apartment building. He leaves for a fight while she goes to a nightclub where she works as a taxi dancer for its owner, Rapallo (Frank Silvera).Meanwhile, Davy loses the fight and on his return to his apartment, he sees through Gloria's bedroom window that Rapallo is trying to rape her. Davy rushes to her aid and beats Rapallo up who fleas. Shaken, Gloria recounts her life story to Davy about having to support herself and Rapallo who wants her. They decide to leave town and stay with Davy's uncle in Seattle. But first, Davy must collect money owed to him by Albert (Jerry Jarret) his manager. When Gloria phones Rapallo and tells him that she is leaving him for good, Rapallo decides to send out his strong-armed men (Mike Dana, Felice Orlandi, Ralph Roberts and Phil Stevenson) to kill Davy to reclaim his woman.Davy and Gloria go to the taxi dance club where Gloria will pick up her last paycheck and Davy will wait outside on the street for Albert to show up with his money. When two drunken mens club conventioneers steal Davy's coat, he chases off after them in which Albert arrives outside the club and waits for Davy. Just then, two of Rapallo's goons arrive and attack and kill Albert in a vacant alley after they mistake him for Davy.When Davy returns to pick up Gloria, Rapallo realizes that they killed the wrong man and he sends his men out to just grab Gloria by force. When Davy returns to his apartment to pack up and sees Gloria being taken by Rapallo's men, he rushes over, but they get away. Davy is forced to hide when his landlord and two policemen arrive looking for him to question him about Albert's murder. Davy now embarks on a personal quest to find Gloria on his own.The next morning, Davy follows Rapallo from his club to a seedy and desolate part of the Lower East Side where he takes him hostage with a gun and forces him to lead him to Gloria. At the loft, Davy holds Rapallo and his two henchman in check as he unties Gloria. But just then, one henchman lunges at him for the gun and a struggle ensues. Davy is forced to run while Rapallo and one of his thugs chase off after him while one stays behind to watch Gloria. When the henchman left behind lets his guard down, Gloria knocks him on his head and escapes.A climatic chase begins as Davy is pursued across the rooftops by Rapallo and one of his henchmen. When the henchman injurs his foot after jumping from one rooftop to the next, Rapallo leaves him behind to contine chasing after Davy. The chase leads to an old warehouse filled with disembodied shop-window mannequins. Davy engages in a life-or-death struggle with Rapallo, kills him and, believing that he has lost Gloria, leaves alone to catch his train to Seattle.Flashing forward to the present, just as Davy steps up onto the platform to board, Gloria joins him at the last minute and they ride off together.

Tags: cult, murder, flashback

Review:
shorts and a feature which were so little known that they were never even shown in England, made a suspense thriller From the fact that he co-produced it, wrote it, directed it and did the photography and editing himself you may deduce that he had more talent than backing The movie was called "Killer's Kiss," and the multi-talented man who made it was the young Stanley Kubrick "Killer's Kiss" is a fascinating movie to look back as it is a notable thriller in its own right It is a film about lonely people; alone people, which is not quite the same thing; their roots almost severed from a past which was once good and is now lost; solitary in the impartial big city at the end of the line It starts with a confident, quiet slowness that few directors would dare in the frenetic Seventies It takes its time to develop, and for nearly half the film you can't guess what the plot is going to be But this carefully measured film gives you a deep feeling for the characters and their context that leaves you, even after all the suspense, with an overwhelming feeling of the humanity of the movie The narrator, Davy Gordon (Jamie Smith) is a young and fading boxer, past it, but not defeated in his heart The girl Gloria Price (Irene Kane), who lives in the same apartment block, has, like him, no family nor friends She's come down to working as a dance partner in a shabby hall run by a baddie called Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera).Kubrick slowly, and movingly, shows the two principals taking the downgrade: Davy fighting a losing bout in the ring while Gloria is trying to push off some heavy passes from Rapallo Even he, Rapallo, is made human, understandable When he stands in his shadowed office, making up his mind to some malice, his eyes fall on cozy family photographs in nice domestic frames that he takes the trouble to keep there; and, when his mind is made up, he gestures irritably, guiltily, as if knowing he's letting them down and trying weakly to dismiss summarily aside their silent reproaches The whole story is condensed into three days Yet it seems to have the natural, inevitable pace of real life; and the moments briefly taken out for little touches of New York street scenes add to the reality and place it in a context of truth Very little violence is actually shown except in Davy's boxing match which, in just a few minutes, gives a better feeling than most movies of what it's like to lose a fight in the ring But, in spite of all, you're on the edge of your seat and you're glad to be there There is a classic chase over the rooftops, but even here there are human touches that kill cliché These villains are not supermen, any more than Davy is: they can stumble on a fire escape, and not for laughs; one of them can fall as you or I would fall and drop out with a twisted ankle The suspense is not lessened by these touches: it is increased, because it is more real, seems less contrived "Killer's Kiss" was a first-class suspense film that foreshadowed conscious and technique that Kubrick was to take to the limit in later years And, after all, the ending was fair enough for the Fifties In the Seventies, Gloria would probably have got raped by the railway porter, and there'd have been a lot of unlovely detail and no suspense at all.
A young Stanley Kubrick's bare-budget film - perhaps his first "mainline" movie - shows him still in the minor leagues but very close to making it to the Major Leagues.
It's definitely a "B" noir that is more melodrama than crime until the ending when it gets very, very suspenseful featuring a chase over New York City rooftops and then into abandoned warehouses.Jamie Smith and Irene Kane are the stars and if you've never heard of them, it's probably because they weren't exactly Humphey Bogart and Bette Davis, acting-wise.
While the basic plot of the movie is nothing special and decidely more 'Hollywood' than Kubrick's later works there are more signs of his trademark style in this film than I feel there were in The Killing or Paths of Glory.
Frank Silvera, who had the lead role in Fear And Desire, is the slimy villain, whom you actually want to die (a good sign [for a villain]).This Kubrick film can most be compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or Barry Lyndon (1975), in that, once you get past a slow beginning, the end is absolutely riveting.
There are some nice ideas in the film, such as the part where Gloria tells her story to a backdrop of her sister doing ballet, and the Rear Window style way that the Gloria and Davy meet, but as the film is only 67 minutes long, it felt at times that Kubrick was spending too long on certain sequences, which is a problem if the movie is as short as this one is as it looked as though Kubrick was just dragging things out in order to meet an acceptable running time.
That might be so bad in a longer film, but here it's not good.This movie is a nice, taut little thriller and is definitely recommended to people that want to see some early Kubrick and thereby see how he developed as a filmmaker, but it's not a great film and I don't recommend going into this movie expecting it to be one..
Killer's Kiss is a wonderful film to watch if you like to see good lighting and cinematography, or if your a Kubrick fan.
"Killer's Kiss" (1955), acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick's second feature film, starred Jamie Smith, Irene Kane and Frank Silvera.The story looks like it was partly inspired by Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946): A boxer called on the slide Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith), is awakened from a dream (a stunning piece of surrealism, it's only fault being that it is too short) by the screams of Gloria Price (Irene Kane), who lives on the other side of his apartment block, as her lecherous boss Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera) forces himself on her.
Silvera is excellent as our villain and Smith, while nothing special, is good enough for his part, but because Kubrick opted to film the movie "silent" and then put in the sounds in post-production, not only do you have errors like cars driving in the background but no noise issuing forth from them, but the performances are made rather stilted and the dialogue spoken doesn't always match up to their lips.
Killer's Kiss shows us the relationship between a welterweight boxer and a dancer.He loses a fight and her boss is causing the girl some trouble.Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed Killer's Kiss in 1955.It's a good film made in a film-noir style.It's a small and cheap movie which was filmed in the back alleys of New York.It looks real good.The chase scene on the roof is pretty exciting.The actors are fairly unknown.The main couple, Davy Gordon and Gloria Price are played by Jamie Smith and Irene Kane.The bad guy, Vincent Rapallo is played by Frank Silvera.Kubrick, who would have turned 80 last summer was an amazing movie maker who came up with many masterpieces.Killer's Kiss shows us a little of that Stanley Kubrick we knew later..
I particularly loved the boxing match--bizarre but highly exciting camera shots abounded, you could see and almost feel all the sweat on the boxers (more so than in more polished films like CHAMPION or REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT) and the boxers looked like they were beating the crap out of each other--not pulling their punches or dancing.As for the story, it ain't deep but it's a textbook example of "simple is best"--and for some films this is definitely true.
The man is Davy Gordon (Smith), not a disgruntled P.I. or someone else connected to anything legal or illegal whom teeters on both sides of the law but a boxer, plain a simple, perhaps a boxer due to Kubrick's 1951 short Day of the Fight given its boxing content.Following Davy's fight, he is awoken in the middle of the night by Gloria Price's (Kane) screaming and it turns out she's having a bit of trouble with her employer Vincent Rapallo (Silvera) who is helplessly in love with her as it is and thus, the obsession inspired behaviour does not bode well with a woman unafraid to use her voice and loose enough as it is anyway.
But he can't due to the censorship rules although it doesn't detract from the film's quality  later on, Kubrick would confront global fears such as nuclear war and make a black comedy out of it and with A Clockwork Orange, he would pull the film from cinemas himself due to all the content many people were unhappy with; examples of taboo subjects and lack of compassion towards censorship that were trying or wanting to break out in Killer's Kiss.The film continues down its unpredictable route of noir and crime, using bizarre street locations full of towering chimney's and bizarre desolate buildings as the finale nears.
The plot revolves around Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) a struggling boxer who meets Gloria Price (Irene Kane) when he saves her from gangster Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera).
A severely underrated film-noir that turned out to be far more engaging than expected, Killer's Kiss is no masterpiece in my opinion but it did serve its purpose well as a warm up feature for director Stanley Kubrick's talents before he started churning out one masterpiece after another until the very end of his legendary film career & is as experimental as his other features.The story revolves around Davey Gordon; a 29-year old boxer well past his prime, who's waiting at the train station for his girl and in an extended flashback recounts the happenings of his recent past.
After this failure, Kubrick decided not to give up and spent the following two years saving money in order to make another movie: "Killer's Kiss", the movie that would pave the way for Kubrick's future masterpieces."Killer's Kiss" is the story of Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith), a 29 years old boxer living in New York at the apparent end of his career.
While Gordon is quickly falling in love with Gloria, Mr. Rapallo is planning his vengeance, as he is not willing to let Gloria run away from his hands.With a screenplay written by Howard Sackler (who also helped Kubrick in "Fear and Desire"), "Killer's Kiss" was based on an original story by Stanley Kubrick himself (something he would never do again) that in many ways seems to reflect Kubrick's vision of New York in those years.
Taking a realist approach to the story, Kubrick seems to give a good use to everything he learned by making documentaries (the fight scene brings back memories from his first short, "Day of the Fight"), and it is in fact his dynamic camera-work what makes the movie special.
Finally, the music by Gerald Fried (who also started his career in Kubrick's first short) is another of the highlights of "Killer's Kiss", subtly adding a morbid and somber tone to the movie's images.Well, the acting is not exactly good, as with the exception of Frank Silvera and Jamie Smith, nobody in the cast was a professional actor at the time of making "Killer's Kiss".
It is Irene Kane as Gloria Price where the movie fails, as she seems unable to do with her character something more than looking great on film.Sadly, the rest of the cast is actually worse, with the probable exception of Jerry Jarret, a non-professional actor who is very convincing as Gordon's manager.
Shot in areas near the apartment where Kubrick lived on those years, "Killer's Kiss" is like an oddly attractive postcard of those sides of New York where nobody would like to get lost, as Kubrick makes this dark and gritty story a haunting portrait of his city showing its best and its worst faces at the same time.While at first sight it may seem that the movie is important only because a young Stanley Kubrick made it, "Killer's Kiss" really has some interesting elements on its favor.
While certainly weak in some aspects, "Killer's Kiss" is an excellent film noir that most importantly, would attract producers for Kubrick's first masterpiece: 1956's "The Killing".
The second feature film directed by future critical darling Stanley Kubrick, Killer's Kiss isn't a particularly good film.
Kubrick's hand in this is very visible in a few particularly innovative sequences.The mystery/noir-style plot is captivating enough, but visually and in its use of sound, this film is definitely worth your time.
But for one of his early films, Kubrick did a good job directing Killer's Kiss.
The happy ending got me unprepared for, as I know Kubrick and his love for generating mixed feelings in his viewers, but I later learned that it was imposed by the producers for a lot of money, so I can see now why it is so.All in all, being this his second film and with a low budget, it's still an interesting piece of history in the greatest director of all time's career..
Killer's Kiss only really shows glimpses of the greatness that would come from the much revered director, but no doubt this was down to - as Kubrick's many roles behind the camera would indicate - a lack of backing from the film industry.
The Killer's Kiss is the second film of Stanley Kubrick, where as well as the direction, he is the author of screenplay, cinematography and editing.
This movie has many attractions: it is a low budget movie with the geniality of Stanley Kubrick, the narrative is in off, the shadows are marvelous, in a wonderful black and white photography, and the camera is fantastic, such as filming the fight of Davy, or the panoramic chase on the top of an old New York building.
Set in NYC and filmed in stark b&w, Killer's Kiss, from 1955, was Stanley Kubrick's second feature film as a director.Filmed on a super-low budget, this incredibly seedy-looking "boy-meets-girl" Crime/Drama contains a number of very interesting location shots around the city.Featuring some priceless, wooden performances, ludicrous situations, and unintentionally hilarious dialog, Killer's Kiss has washed-up boxer, Davey Gordon saving dancehall-hostess-in-distress, Gloria, from the slimy, lecherous clutches of her greasy, gangster boss, Mr. Rapalo.This film, with its 70 minute running time, is noteworthy for its final confrontation that takes place between good and bad within the shadowy confines of a dimly-lit warehouse crammed with dozens of naked, department store mannequins..
It comes a year before "The Killing" (1956), a more substantial film noir that marked Kubrick as a film maker for whom you might want to front some money."Killer's Kiss" runs sixty-seven mostly taunt minutes in New York City gritty black and white, featuring some stylistic variations on some standard Hollywood noir elements: the fight game, bare-knuckle toughs, a chase scene, a good guy/bad guy fight (the bad guy, Vincent Rapolla played by Frank Silvera, swinging a fireman's axe, the good guy, Davey Gordon--Jamie Smith--coming up with what looks like a pointed flag pole), a blond beauty to be fought over, Gloria Price (Irene Kane AKA Chris Chase), and a very satisfying ending.The film is framed as a first person flashback from Davey Gordon as he waits for a train to Seattle.
It is his future relationship with Gloria, and her connection to the sleazy bad-guy Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera), that precipitates the suspenseful events in the film.Stanley Kubrick's second feature film (after the impossible-to-find 'Fear and Desire' of two years earlier) is a solid directorial effort, especially considering that Kubrick, just 27 years old at the time, was living on welfare and working on a shoestring budget.
Suddenly, without warning, the viewer is tossed into the thick of the violence, and we witness the fight from Davy's point of view, as he cops a nasty blow to the head and plummets to the floor, the counting referee bearing menacingly over him.At just 67 minutes, 'Killer's Kiss' is substantially shorter than any other Kubrick films that I have seen, but this is probably a good thing  I don't think the story and suspense could have held up any longer than it did.
It's easy to see why Stanley later looked to adapt stories by others, as Killer's Kiss unfortunately isn't up to much at all.Considering that the film was made on a teeny weeny budget of $40,000 raised by friends and relatives (kind of like Darren Aronofsky's Pi) it's actually not too bad.
There's a good fight scene at the end, but by the time it's all over I was left wondering what the point of it was.It's a brief film which features bland characters and a boring story.
Apart from anything, it's a logical starting point, given the fact that Fear And Desire is unavailable (at the director's own behest).This is film noir in its true sense: made on a shoestring budget with no permit to film, Kubrick was forced into the dim back alleys of New York to tell the story of a failed young boxer (Jamie Smith) who falls for Gloria Price's gangster's moll.
Smith falls in love, but smarmy Silvera is willing to kill to keep Kane "Killer's Kiss" features a superb 1950s New York City "film noir" setting, and its three central performances are very natural.
Stanley Kubrick was the director, cinematographer, editor, co-producer and co-writer of his second movie and commendably, despite his lack of experience and an obviously low budget, "Killer's Kiss" proved to be an extremely enjoyable and visually impressive film noir drama.Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) is a washed up boxer who meets and falls in love with a dance-hall hostess called Gloria Price (Irene Kane) and together they plan to relocate to Seattle.