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Stars: Ralph Meeker, Nick Dennis, Maxine Cooper, Cloris Leachman, Gaby Rodgers | Written by A.I. Bezzerides | Directed by Robert Aldritch

Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is driving down the freeway, minding his own business, when he almost hits a woman. Mike is a private investigator, and he knows trouble when he sees it, but he can’t just leave her in the road. His decision to stop and help triggers a confrontation with a group of thugs. When he comes around, the lady is dead – and Mike wants to know what the hell just happened.

With the help of his assistant and lover, Velda (Maxine Cooper), Mike takes a deep dive into the L.A. underworld. Scouring the backstreets, bars and boxing clubs, he uncovers a web of intrigue and violence, involving all the usual men of power, i.e. gangsters and cops. Countless bodies are left in the wake of his...

Robert Wagner as a social climbing psycho killer? I knew it! 'Mr. CinemaScope Smile' grins only once or twice in this movie, and then only to fool an unsuspecting woman. A great cast brings tension to Ira Levin's outrageous tale of murder. Joanne Woodward has a powerful role, but my heartthrob this time out is lovely Virginia Leith. A Kiss Before Dying Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date May 3, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith, Joanne Woodward, Mary Astor, George Macready, Robert Quarry. Cinematography Lucien Ballard Art Direction Addison Hehr Film Editor George A. Gittens Original Music Lionel Newman Written by Lawrence Roman from a novel by Ira Levin Produced by Robert L. Jacks Directed by Gerd Oswald

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

It's a safe bet that a huge chunk of Americans now identify Robert Wagner as the father of Anthony Dinozzo on TV's NCIS.

Kiss Me Deadly

Directed by Robert Aldrich

Written by A.I. Bezzerides

U.S.A., 1955

Fear and danger frequently go hand in hand all to easily, be it in the world of the movies or in real life, the latter which serves a superb inspiration on the former as many already know. One person can be fearful of what danger lurks about. Fear can cause them to behave dangerously. Their dangerous behaviour can cause fear in others. Both the fear and the danger can be the offspring of yet another factor that commonly complicates matters: the unknown. Man’s fear might emerge from a physical thing he fails to comprehend, or it can also explode out of a situation which is beyond his simply control, for which he has no answer, to ripost. Kiss Me Deadly, from 1955, arrived on the silver screen just as the Cold War was, figuratively speaking, heating up,...

Director: Robert Aldrich Writer: A. I. Bezzerides Cinematographer: Ernest Laszlo Stars: Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper, Cloris Leachman, Gaby Rodgers Studio/Running Time: Criterion, 104 min. Completely at random, Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) nearly runs over a girl wearing nothing but a trenchcoat. While she’s soon caught by the police, Hammer’s intrigued by her tale and begins investigating her past. The very act of pursuing this sets a whole gang of mobsters, FBI agents and seemingly everyone else in the world against Hammer, all the while the girl’s identity and what secrets she was hiding become if anything less clear. That’s...