Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)

This is a surprisingly vivid movie. Some will find the plot a little canned, a vehicle for quick appeal, not quite a B movie enterprise. But I enjoyed so much the two leads--Joan Fontaine as ever luminous and sympathetic, Burt Lancaster in his tough yet lovable best--I loved the whole movie. Furthermore it is photographed, mostly at night, with amazing fluidity and drama, another high point in the film noir style.

Though this is a British-feeling movie set in London, it is topped out with American actors and directed by an American, too. It is a great example of that American archetype known as film noir. It even has the standard core of the best of them, a returning soldier struggling to make sense of normal life. Lancaster has a past that includes two years in a Nazi prison camp. He has the mental scars to show for it (as the text at the beginning explains needlessly for the time, but maybe helpfully for a viewer now).

It is the at first highly unlikely but increasingly plausible relationship between two lonely people that commands the movie. The less compelling plot line of a somewhat stereotypical blackmailer and the associated crimes is handled well in each case, though more about action than psychological depth. You get frustrated when Lancaster never tells Fontaine what is going on in his shady moments, but that's part of his problem and we are to go along. He trusts no one for good reason.

The finale? A bit hasty, maybe, the way that other famous Fontaine thriller is ("Suspicion"), but it's satisfying, too, and not quite a "Hollywood" ending.

The director is little known Norman Foster, who made a bunch of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto films in the 1930s, and the quite good "Rachel and the Stranger." Another example of how teamwork lifts even less inspired aspects higher. This has a great cast, excellent music (by the dependable romantic whiz Miklos Rozsa), and great filming (with Russell Metty behind the camera).

The hardest thing about this film is finding it. I bought a really lousy DVD copy of a lousy tape made years ago off an AMC broadcast, and even so it was terrific watching, visually. It has been broadcast on TCM and I think their version would be superior, if you can find someone who has copied it (legality aside, though it might be past copyright).

It's not a masterpiece of a film, but it looks so darned good it should be released in full Blu-Ray and now. Meanwhile, happy hunting for a better copy than mine. It's worth it!

Kiss The Blood Off My Hands was the first film that Burt Lancaster had a hand in producing, it was the first for his personal company Norma Productions. In fact to get Joan Fontaine as his co-star he had to cut her in and her production company for half and give her top billing. Lancaster would later do that with Clark Gable and Gary Cooper when he co-starred with them, this according to a recent biography on Lancaster.

This was a frustrating film for me because I think it had the potential to be a real classic. Lancaster is a disturbed World War II veteran with issues we later find out did not come from just his military service. He's got a quick temper and a propensity to use his fists first. He accidentally kills a bar owner and happens to flee into Fontaine's apartment.

Joan is a repressed woman very much akin to the character she played in her Oscar winning performance in Suspicion. She works as a nurse and has no social life. Lancaster's animal magnetism both frightens and attracts her.

Unfortunately Robert Newton playing one of his patented evil characters is a small time crook who sees what Lancaster did. His attempt to blackmail Burt into a life of crime sets the tone for the rest of the film. Newton also steals the film from both stars in the scenes he's in.

A forced and contrived Hollywood ending really ruins this film. I'd like to rate it better, all the players did their job more than competently. But if you see Kiss The Blood Off My Hands I think you'll agree with me.

Before he lost his soul, his mind, his spirit in lousy, stupid Disney production craps, Norman Foster was a good film maker, for instance this solid noir crime flick, and also WOMAN ON THE RUN or JOURNEY INTO FEAR; let's put besides some Mr MOTO or CHARLIE CHAN junk. So this one, starring Burt Lancaster sounds familiar if you already saw CRISS CROSS; same kind of character for Lancaster. It is rough, brutal, full of violence and passion. THEY LIVE BY NIGHT revisited and taking place in a big city. Efficient, tense, poignant, with a Burt Lancaster already on his rise to full stardom. And in rocket speed mode.

The leads do an adequate job with the material they are given, and they are at the height of their physical attractiveness, charm and star power.

This film was written by three people. That might have been part of the problem. It just doesn't build up enough tension or suspense for my taste. The antagonist just isn't given enough leverage, power or menace.

This is a bit of an Offbeat noir, even original. The stars are so watchable they make up for the inadequacies and simpleness of the script. Had the script and story been fleshed out more into a 90 or 120 minute film this might have ended up a classic.

What should have been a much more effective film with an absorbing, sometimes gripping story, is somehow turned into a tepid melodrama interesting only for the performances of the principal players--Burt Lancaster, Joan Fontaine and Robert Newton.

Basically, the story has hot tempered Lancaster running from the law and seeking shelter in Fontaine's apartment. Against her better judgment, she becomes involved with him but can't protect him from a blackmailer (Robert Newton) who has witnessed Lancaster's crime. Joan Fontaine gives a surprisingly strong performance in a confrontation scene with Newton that is the most gripping moment of the film. To tell any more would be to give the rest of the plot away.

As intense as Lancaster is, it's not a very well written role--there is definitely something lacking in the screenplay. Nor is the chemistry between him and Fontaine very strong or believable. She gives one of her better performances as the woman who just happens to cross paths with a killer.

The low key lighting gives the film a grim, film noir look that is appropriate for this kind of story, as does Miklos Rozsa's score although it does not rank with some of his best work. At best, it's a routine melodrama that could have been so much more.