For this analysis of the 1955 Film Kiss Me Deadly, we start at 25:23.
Kiss Me Deadly, 1955 “Drop the Knife” Scene
We start the scene in a soft fade from the previous scene. We see our protagonist, Mike Hammer, back up his car to park on the side of the street. For context, he’s following a lead. As he backs his car up, we cut to a man standing nearby leaning on a building, reading a newspaper; he’s wearing a fedora and a black suit. We get a musical cue that this man is bad business. He seemingly was awaiting for our guy to show up. As Mike exits his car to start walking, the man stops reading his newspaper to start tailing him. The camera is tied to Mike, as he walks, the camera follows too at a medium/longish type shot. Without cutting, the camera continuously follows Mike to the newspaper stand and down the street. As we see the man following, we get more close-up shots of Mike and his shoes and some contrasting shots of his pursuer. As Mike stops to buy some popcorn, he seemingly notices the man behind him subtly, as the man stops to smoke and looks inconspicuous, which he horribly fails at. Mike walks away from the popcorn stand with a look on his face, one that tells us that he feels like that man is following him. We once again get more close-up shots of Mike eating his popcorn and his shoes whilst he’s walking and some contrasting shots of his pursuer; the sound design here also creates some tension with every footstep being very distinct. We get a long shot where he stops to buy cigarettes from a dispenser. We get a medium shot where we see Mike’s reflection in the dispenser, he can see the man who’s following him in the reflection. We go back to the medium/long shot as he walks away which then jarringly starts to cut back and forth between Mike and the man, the score becomes heightened, the man starts to pick up speed. We see the man pull a switchblade out. With the click of the knife, Mike turns around and throws his popcorn in his pursuer’s face as he begins to hold the man’s arm behind his back. The score is at its highest with the crescendo going off as the action begins. “Drop the knife,” are the only words we hear in this scene. The man drops the knife as Mike begins to basically kick this dude’s ass. He throws the guy against the wall until he falls over. Mike goes to pick up the knife and walk away. The man gets back up and goes for round two with Mike. That was a mistake for him, as one single hook to the face knocks him down a long staircase as we cut to a medium shot of Mike staring at the man tumbling down.
Now, that was a lot for a scene with a single line of dialogue. I wanted to highlight this aspect of films noirs, this aspect of the labyrinth of Los Angeles. This is something I delved into a little bit in the previous reflection with Christopher’s Into the Labyrinth reading. As a refresher, Christopher delves into the depictions of urban landscapes of films noirs as a whole. With the portrayal of these cityscapes, we’re left as an audience feeling bleak, drab, dark, and confused. The characters in these cities are likely to be as lost as we, the audience, are in the same boat as well. The vast, twisting and turning of the environment make the characters feel smaller than life itself.
This selected scene I picked I feel is the perfect example of this given reading being actively applied to a films noirs. In this scene, we see Mike walk around the city at night. The choice of musical score and the mixture of tight shots contrasted with a couple of long shots help make the city feel tight, narrow, and hopeless. Like… a labyrinth.
This is a tale of mystery, of murder, of despair and this portrayal of Los Angeles helps enhance upon these themes.
