Kiss Me Deadly (1956) Robert Aldrich

Nothing seems to make sense in “Kiss Me Deadly,” even the opening credits roll backwards. Author Mickey Spillane hated the movie, screenwriter AI Bezzerides hated the book and film goers back in 1955 must have been confused with what it was they were exactly looking at. Sure there was a P.I. and plenty of hot looking dames with legs that went from one end of the screen to the other but, this is the 1950′s, the time of The BOMB, we’re not just dealing with dope here, this time it’s serious.

Ralph Meeker’s Mike Hammer may just be the dumbest P.I. to ever grace the screen, still director Robert Aldrich gives us one of the great film noirs of all time with a touch of science fiction tossed in just for good measure. It’s violent, sexy, nasty, and one of a kind. The film’s ending is one of those, to use an antiquated 1960’s term, mind blowing, one of the great film endings that will stay with you long after the film is over. Meeker is perfect as the thuggish Mike Hammer, a bedroom dick, who is not beyond letting his secretary/ lover, Velda (Maxine Cooper) have sex with someone just to gain information on the case.

Cool Hand Luke (1967) Stuart Rosenberg

 

Contains spoilers

One of the most famous and most often misquoted lines in “Cool Hand Luke” happens when Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is captured after one of his escape attempts. The Captain played by Strother Martin hits Luke severely on his back sending him tumbling down a small hill. The Captain stands high above over Luke and the rest of the prisoners down below the hill.

“What we got here…is failure to communicate”

Even the newspaper ads of the day got it wrong printing “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate”,  they printed. Of course it is catchier saying it this way and it worked. The phrase has become part of our vocabulary, and as another well-known catchphrase states “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”