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A Kiss Before DyingRating:
Release Date: 03 December, 2002 Retail Price: $14.95 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.96! Cast: Complete Cast (8 total) |
A Kiss Before Dying Reviews
Much better than the remake, but still not quite there...
The 1955 A Kiss Before Dying is much better than James Dearden's TV-looking remake, but doesn't hold up as well as it could to a second viewing. Gerd Oswald directed many of the best episodes of The Outer Limits but never made much impact on the big screen, and at times this is a little too conventional in its approach to its once taboo subject matter, although he makes a surprisingly decent stab at the unfilmable twist from Ira Levin's novel. But there's still the feeling that he gets more mileage out of the first half of the film, as Robert Wagner's All-American working class psycho finds his plans to marry into money shattered by an unplanned pregnancy (thrown away almost entirely in the remake) than the amateur detective work of the second half. Jeffrey Hunter's stiff turn as the eternally pipe-smoking square doesn't help matters much, but it's still worth seeing at least once. Curiously, the film looks and feels almost exactly like a mid-50s 20th Century Fox film, but was actually an independent picture released by United Artists.
MGM/UA's disc offers a nice 2.35:1 transfer with the original theatrical trailer.
Robert Quarry alert!
Holly Molly, Count Yorga is in this! I watched an entire scene before realising it was him. Sadly, Drac's understudy appears in a scene of almost self-emoliating unhipness. He plays a DJ who gets his brains blown out all over a typewriter, despite the fact that his wimpy killer was not holding the gun with any great conviction and moving around a lot in a confined space. What with being a DJ and all, you'd think he'd be handy with his arms but he just sits there crying for his mummy. Get a back bone man, you've got nothing to lose by having a go at the oleaginous creep. I mean he had trouble restraining a girl later on in the flick and you are sitting down too. So easy to grab his arm. Why am I wasting precious life rabbiting on about some old scene? Well, unhipness on this scale can threaten our very existence. Call it a public service. Poor Robert Quarry. Sorry, I mean, crown prince of UNCOOL!
The film's title is not technically correct. There is a bit of flying before she actually does the dying. But 'A Kiss Before Flying And Then Dying' is not so snappy on a marquee. People might think she got on a plane before dying. In which case, how did he kill her long distance? You have to consider these things. Well, not you personally. Where was I? Virginia Leith wears a clinging white top that is an outrageous come-on even for the fifties. There are enough vintage cars to make you nostalgic. Unless your name begins with C and ends in O and you smoke Cuban cigars. My God, that was laboured. This really is a slow sunday. Perfect for a nasty, tense pot boiler to break the nu. Hang on, I'll look that up. Ennui.
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