Review – Killer’s Kiss

This is Stanley Kubrick’s first feature-length narrative effort, though at just barely over an hour it just barely meets my review qualifications. It’s a latter-day noir tale of a washed-up boxer who gets caught up in a deadly romance with a taxi dancer trying to ditch her obsessive boss. I was impressed by the quality of the lighting and composition. Clearly Kubrick possessed great technical genius even early in his career. His sense of dialogue, character and pace must have developed a bit later, however. Overall this strangely reminded me of Barry Lyndon, as both movies are showcases of film-making quality but suffer from weak stories. At least this one wasn’t quite as dull and of course nowhere near as long. Mildly amusing