Kiss of Death

When Richard Widmark passed away in March, I was embarrassed to realize that I really only knew him for two roles: as Jim Bowie in the bloated John Wayne history pageant The Alamo, and as the victim in Murder on the Orient Express. Over the next week or so I hope to rectify this by taking a look at Widmark's best roles available on DVD.

I start, of course, with Kiss of Death. This was Widmark's star-making turn, for which he received an Oscar nomination and spent much of the rest of his career trying to live down. He memorably inhabited psychotic killer Tommy Udo, who had a hyena-like cackle and a penchant for pushing wheelchair-bound old ladies down staircases.

Kiss of Death is a solid if unspectacular example of film noir directed by Henry Hathaway. As with many films of the age, it is awash in sociology. Victor Mature plays Nick Bianco, a career criminal who has two small children. When he's pinched after a jewelry-store robbery, he's offered a deal by the well-meaning D.A. (Brian Donlevy) if he gives up his compatriots. Bianco, however, lives by the code of omerta, and goes to jail. While incarcerated, though, his wife commits suicide and he rethinks his allegiance to the mob, who had promised him she would be taken care of.

Bianco is pushed by the D.A. to get the goods on the sinister killer Udo, whom he had befriended while in Sing Sing. This leads to a showdown in an Italian restaurant, with Bianco ready to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his kids.

Hathaway has crafted a few excellent scenes, particularly the robbery that opens the film, when the thieves are making their escape by taking an elevator, sweating as it stops on each floor. There's also a great scene in the restaurant in the end, when Udo spots Bianco through an opening in a curtain and approaches with a kind of leopard-like stealth. Some of the script, perhaps because it is ham-strung by the production code, takes a soggy approach toward Bianco, giving him religious overtones and tilting the contrasts a little too much toward black and white when the story asks for shades of gray. However, the most famous scene in the film, when Udo pushes the old lady down the stairs, remained and is justifiably memorable. Even today it is a jarring example of sociopathic behavior.

The film was shot largely on location around New York City, including the Tombs, the Chrysler building, and Sing Sing prison. A few other things of note: it is narrated by a woman (Coleen Gray), which was a rarity for noir films and a young Karl Malden plays a police detective.

In addition for being known as Widmark's striking introduction to film audiences, it also is one of Victor Mature's finest performances. Mature would go on to be something of a joke in Hollywood, starring in sandal-and-toga pictures as a muscleman. This film and his turn as Doc Holliday in John Ford's My Darling Clementine are evidence that he was a better actor that his legacy suggests.