- For other uses of A Kiss Before Dying, see A Kiss Before Dying (disambiguation).
A Kiss Before Dying is a 1956 American color film noir,[1] directed by Gerd Oswald. The screenplay was written by Lawrence Roman, based on Ira Levin's 1953 novel of the same name, which won the 1954 Edgar Award for "Best First Novel."[2] The drama stars Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith, Joanne Woodward, Mary Astor, among others.
A young Robert Wagner, early in his film career, plays a psychopathic college student, who upon discovering that his wealthy girlfriend — played by Joanne Woodward in one of her first film roles — is pregnant out of wedlock, kills her and stages the murder as a suicide.
Plot
The picture tells the story of Bud Corliss (Robert Wagner) an ambitious student who wants to get ahead in life, and badly. He is wooing Dorothy Kingship (Joanne Woodward) purely for her father's Kingship Copper Mines mining fortune.
When he discovers that Dorothy is pregnant with his child, he realizes she is quite likely to be disinherited by her wealthy family. He assures Dorothy that he'll take care of her, yet he hesitates when Dorothy insists on marrying. Bud then murders Dorothy and stages it in a way that it appears to be a suicide. He then reaches out to her sister Ellen (Virginia Leith) with the hopes of marrying her in order to ingratiate himself with her tycoon conservative father. After a couple of months Ellen finds evidence to question the suicide verdict, and then discovers Bud knew Dorothy. Ellen struggles to avenge her sister and save her own life.
Cast
Background
Bud hears that Dorothy is pregnant.
According to film critic Alain Silver, a theme used in film noirs is the disruptive force of the "maniac" in society. The threat to the family and social values are apparent in these types of films.
Gaining dominance and disrupting the family is a central theme of A Kiss Before Dying. Robert Wagner's character pursues one path to his true target in Dorothy, then kills her and pursues her sister, all with the objective of reaching their father and his fortune.[3]
Adaptations
The film was adapted in 1991 using the same title (see: A Kiss Before Dying). It was directed by James Dearden, and starred Matt Dillon and Sean Young.
Critical reception
The film has generally received mixed reviews. Time Out Film Guide liked the script and the direction of the film, and wrote, "An early Ira Levin thriller, predating Rosemary's Baby...superbly adapted as an icily acute nightmare...by the great Oswald, giving a criminally myopic Hollywood its first glimpse of a unique visual talent, idiosyncratically developed from that of his father, German silent director Richard Oswald."[4]
Film critic James Crawford especially liked the direction of the film and its inventiveness. He makes the case that the film's long second shot functions as a foreshadowing, an organizing principle, a statement of purpose in the film. Crawford wrote, "It’s not remarkable for what it reveals — it’s essentially exposition of narrative and character traits — but for its movement, length, and the way it approaches space, viewer identification, and power dynamics." As for the creativity of the film, he compares the three minutes, 26 seconds length of the shot and likened it to the "granddaddy of all tracking shots", the one that kicks off Touch of Evil — the most apropos comparison, given that it was released in 1958, two years later.[5]
References
- ^ Selby, Spencer. Dark City: The Film Noir, McFarland Publishing: Jefferson, N.C. & London, 1984. ISBN 0-89950-103-6. [Note: A Kiss Before Dying listed as 1950s color film noir on page 203.]
- ^ A Kiss Before Dying 1956) at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Silver, Alain, and Elizabeth Ward, eds. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, "Maniacs and Mayhem," page 391, 3rd edition, 1992. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5.
- ^ Time Out Film Guide. Time Out-Chicago, film review. Last assessed: November 29, 2007.
- ^ Craford, James. Reverse Shot, film analysis and review, Summer 2006. Last accessed: November 29, 2007.
External links
