Cornell Cinema will screen a restored print of the film noir classic "Kiss Me Deadly," starring Gaby Rodgers, Ralph Meeker and Cloris Leachman. The apocalyptic cold-war thriller will be shown Friday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m., and Monday, May 17, at 7 p.m., both shows in Willard Straight Theatre.
Film noir meets apocalyptic science fiction in "Kiss Me Deadly," an adaptation of Mickey Spillane's pulp novel of the same name. A restored print of the film noir classic directed by Robert Aldrich will be shown Friday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m. and Monday, May 17, at 7 p.m. Both shows are in Willard Straight Theatre.
Ralph Meeker stars as Mike Hammer, Spillane's wonderfully sleazy private investigator, who stumbles onto a nest of bad guys -- and gals. Everybody is on the trail of a mysterious glowing briefcase -- a device that appears again in Quentin Tarantino's homage to the noir genre, "Pulp Fiction." Playing on the public's Cold War fears about atomic weapons and other threats to middle-class American life, "Kiss Me Deadly" sends investigator Hammer on a journey into a peculiarly 1950s vision of hell.
From the film's first image -- headlights flashing on a scantily clad woman (played by the young Cloris Leachman) running insanely along a dark highway -- to the last, a vision of apocalyptic scope that consumes the genre, "Kiss Me Deadly" has been called by critics a work of demented genius and the blackest noir ever. This new 35 mm restoration of the 1950s film shows off Ernest Laszlo's inky black and white cinematography and features the original ending in its entirety.
"The General," the latest film by veteran filmmaker John Boorman, won him the Best Director Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. It will be shown Friday, May 28, Saturday, May 29, and Monday, May 31. All showings are at 7:15 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre.
Heralded as one of Boorman's best, "The General" stars Brendan Gleeson as real-life burglar Martin Cahill, whose lifetime loot was valued at around $60 million and included the only privately owned Vermeer in the world. Boorman's camera discovers not only Cahill's brutality and violence but also the wit and exuberance that made him one of the most charismatic figures of the underworld.
Earlier in his career, Boorman received Academy Award nominations for his work on "Deliverance" and "Hope and Glory." His first U.S. film, the thriller "Point Blank," was recently remade as the gritty Mel Gibson black comedy-action film "Payback."
Admission to all shows is $4.50/$4 students, seniors and children 12 and under. For information on Cornell Cinema offerings, visit the web at http://cinema.cornell.edu.
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