Nothing is distracting, just as Mike is never distracted. Beautiful, arresting images are shown but never lingered on, camera movements are effective but never dynamic. Kiss Me Deadly is loosely based on the sixth of Mickey Spillane’s 13 Mike Hammer novels, and the film is presented with much of the muscular efficiency of Spillane’s prose. But there’s one thing the bad guys didn’t bet on: “Mike” is Mike Hammer, Private Investigator, and he makes it his mission to avenge Christina. Now in cahoots, Christina begs him to remember her if they don’t make it to safety. She tells him she’s on the run from a psychiatric hospital, and Mike takes a kind of amused liking to her and helps hide her from a police roadblock. Her name is Christina, he’s Mike, and they get talking. It works, and she is picked up by the surly driver (Ralph Meeker). Desperate, she steps out in front of the next one. A young woman in nothing but a trench coat (Cloris Leachman) tries to flag down a car on a dark highway, but they all speed past.
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