Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

Norman Foster's 1948 film is set in postwar London. Burt Lancaster plays a man returned from a prison camp who cannot control his anger. He kills a man in a bar fight and runs. A nurse played by Joan Fontaine hides him and believes his account. The film bends the noir template in a psychological direction. The crime here is not a plan but a loss of control, and the damage left by the war, though never named outright, operates in every scene. Lancaster carries that instability physically. The London setting was built on a studio lot and it shows; the fog-filled streets are Hollywood design of the period. Even so the cinematography stands close to the best examples of noir. Lancaster's own production company was involved in making it. Who it's for: those who love forties noir and postwar trauma narratives. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a realistic London and a coherent crime plot; the film puts atmosphere ahead of story.