Kiss of Death

A film noir set in New York. On a Christmas Eve Nick robs a jeweller. The job goes wrong, the lift is slow, and the police catch him in the building. The prosecutor makes an offer. If he names his partners the sentence will be reduced. Nick refuses. He serves three years. While he is inside his wife dies. His two daughters have been put in an orphanage and he learns of it late. Now he is willing to talk. From there the film becomes a story about informing. The prosecutor gets him released and expects information in return. Nick marries again. He takes his daughters, rents a house in the suburbs, and builds an ordinary life. He testifies in a case. He gives evidence in court and the man is acquitted. That man is Tommy Udo. After the acquittal he finds out who Nick is. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but a trap: Nick does every right thing and every right thing tightens around him. Udo is the film's known element. He laughs constantly, speaks in a high voice, and is cruel for no reason at all. The staircase is the narrative's hardest moment. A wheelchair and a flight of stairs; the scene was extremely shocking at the time and largely determined the film's later fame. Richard Widmark entered cinema with this part and was nominated for an Academy Award for his first film. It was shot in real locations. The streets of New York, a real prison and a real courthouse were used, against the studio habit of the period. Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray and Richard Widmark are in the cast. Henry Hathaway directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1940s noir and location shooting. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a moral reckoning; what the prosecutor does to Nick is questioned nowhere and the ending is too tidy.