Kiss Me Deadly

A private detective who picks up a woman on the road at night soon finds himself inside a chase he does not understand. Everyone is after a box. The film rots the private eye formula from the inside: the hero is coarse, self-serving and largely wrong about what is happening. In the end the narrative ties the genre to something else entirely, the fear of the nuclear age. Robert Aldrich directed, adapting Mickey Spillane's novel; the author disliked the result. Before watching: the ending circulated in truncated prints for years and two different versions are known. Watch the restored one if you can.