An 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 exercise 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 later 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. Filmed on a shoe-string budget, it presents Stanley Kubrick in charge of the responsibilities of director, cinematographer & editor all by himself, at…

Part of:
5 Directors x 5 Unseen Films – Round 1

Like the man said, "Can happiness buy money?"
-Vincent Rapallo

An uninteresting story that is poorly structured and hampered further by wooden performances (at best) but brilliantly directed by a 26 year old Stanley Kubrick, this was his second feature. I'm not saying that to save myself from Kubrick fans as he wrote, produced, edited and directed the film so most of the faults still fall on his shoulders.

Being a film-noir by choice, the story is uncharacteristically simplistic for the genre and barely fills the 67 minute running time. The main problem with the structure of the story is that it all takes place within a flashback, which…

Review In A Nutshell:

Killer's Kiss is by far Kubrick's most difficult film to watch, with a plot that never at all goes anywhere interesting or profound, only to be somewhat redeemed by the final thrilling sequence that proves the director's craftsmanship of creating tension and desperation.

In comparison to Fear and Desire, Killer's Kiss is a less ambitious film, taking place in a familiar environment and featuring a story that is more grounded and superficial. Character development is lacking in this film and chemistry between the two lovers are nowhere to be found. A sense of danger was present during the first half of the film, but it never takes charge until the latter half of the film. Dialogue…

"You filthy old soomka!" - Steve G Does Kubrick

Kubrick must have liked this considering he didn't try and delete it from existence!

I can't imagine he would have been all that delighted with the first half of this film. It's really not very good. A muddle of flashbacks and flashbacks-within-flashbacks commentated on by a mundane voiceover and a plot that seems to be going nowhere, it's only enlivened by the most realistic looking cinematic boxing match that side of Raging Bull. A brilliantly shot scene, Kubrick makes it look enthralling and his 'fighters' look the business as well.

The rest of the time it's punctuated by some randomly inserted experimental shots that just feel like Kubrick going, "Hmm, I…

"Like the man said, 'Can happiness buy money?'" ~ Vincent Rapallo

Even renowned director Stanley Kubrick had his salad days. He was on welfare during the making of this film, his second feature, which he wrote, produced, directed, filmed and edited. In later years, he would describe this production as his "student level of filmmaking."

All the shooting was conducted in New York City with virtually no budget and without on-location filming permits. In fact, it's been said that Kubrick had to negotiate with homeless people to use an East Side alley for the movie's murder scene.

A borrowed spring-wound Eyemo camera was used for many of the sequences, and it was stolen before production ended. What's more, technical problems…