- Overview
A college student tries to get rich quick by wooing two wealthy sisters.
- Release Date
20 April 1956
- DirectingGerd Oswald
- Budget
$0.00
- Revenue
$0.00
- Stars
Videos
User Reviews
See moreJohn Chard
16 May 2024
Love conquers all... A Kiss Before Dying is directed by Gerd Oswald and adapted to screenplay by Lawrence Roman from the novel of the same name written by Ira Levin. It stars Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith, Jeffrey Hunter and Mary Astor. A CinemaScope/De Luxe Color production, music is by Lionel Newman and cinematography by Lucien Ballard. Plot basically finds Wagner as a scheming pretty boy willing to commit murder in order to reach the riches of an inheritance. Story bubbles away nicely as Bud Corlis (Wagner) and Dorothy Kingship (Woodward), he sly and distant - she vulnerable and love struck, both hold court with performances of merit. The spiky edge comes by way of knowing what Bud is up to, and that poor Dorothy is completely oblivious, and when the key moment comes, it's shocking and really perches ones expectation levels to the edge of the seat. Sadly the second half of the movie doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first, for here the focus shifts from a twist into an investigation by Dorothy's sister, Ellen (Leith), who refuses to accept the official party line surrounding her sister. It's all very competently mounted, but the pervading sense of menace has dissipated and in place is just an average murder mystery. Wagner and Woodward are very good, Leith not so much, while Hunter as a pipe smoking professor is badly miscast and Astor is under used. Oswald's direction is fine, with some nifty long takes and some very cheeky visual jokes that only become apparent once story has run its course. Ballard's Scope photography is impressive, managing to make the bright colourful city surrounds always appear as threatening, and Newman's musical arrangements are indicative of the murder mystery splinter of 50s film noir. The themes at the core of the picture are daring and interesting, though more should have been made of the hinted at fact that Bud is a troubled war veteran. It's not all that it can be, the second half diluting the whole as it were, but this is still a tasty noir thriller worthy of catching. 7/10
More Like This
The Lost
A charismatic psycho suspected of killing two innocent campers in a cold-blooded double homicide grows increasingly unstable as his suburban empire...
See more
Boy Culture
A successful gay male escort describes in a series of confessions his tangled romantic relationships with his two roommates and an older, enigmatic...
See more
The Art of Crying
Life is not easy for 11-year-old Allan living in South Jutland during the early 1970s. His mentally unstable father frequently threatens suicide...
See more
White Heat
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After...
See more
A Brighter Summer Day
A boy experiences first love, friendships and injustices growing up in 1960s Taiwan.
See more
May Morning
A dramatic and penetrating examination of the intellectual and moral standards existing at Oxford University, England, in the early 1970s.
See more
Miss Marple: They Do It with Mirrors
At the insistence of Ruth Van Rydock, an old schoolfriend who is convinced that there is something wrong, Miss Marple agrees to visit 'Stonygates',...
See more
The Crime of Padre Amaro
Sent to Mexico to help take care of aging Father Benito, young Father Amaro faces a moral challenge when he meets a 16-year-old girl who he starts...
See more
Fight Club
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept...
See more
Absolut
Two guys against globalization want to plant a virus in the network of a finance corporation. On the day of the attack Alex has an accident and...
See more
Secret Beyond the Door...
After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly a second thought. She finds his New York home...
See more
Die Hard
NYPD cop John McClane's plan to reconcile with his estranged wife is thrown for a serious loop when, minutes after he arrives at her office, the...
See more
Starship Troopers
Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico's military career progresses...
See more
Next Door
After Ingrid leaves John, he allows himself to be pulled into a mystical and scary world where it is impossible to separate truth from lies.
See more
Frenzy
After a serial killer strangles several women with a necktie, London police identify a suspect—but he claims vehemently to be the wrong man.
See more
The Experiment
20 volunteers agree to take part in a seemingly well-paid experiment advertised by the university. It is supposed to be about aggressive behavior...
See more
To Die For
Suzanne Stone wants to be a world-famous news anchor and she is willing to do anything to get what she wants. What she lacks in intelligence, she...
See more
Jaws
When the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack by a dangerous great white shark, the town's chief of police, a young marine...
See more