Well I did not get the point why this movie was called "Kiss of Death". I expect a "femme fatale" in a movie with that title but there was none. The movie is dated, an average film noir of the forties, but the acting of Richard Widmark is simply great and the wheelchair incident was quick but splendid for the forties. The loving father figure was quite overacted. Overall the movie is still worth seeing when you are a film noir fanatic. The script is OK but somewhat predictable, the shooting scene at the end was fast and quite unreal. But most of all ...the last spoken lines sounded irritating and should be better for a nowadays public. Normally I would give it a 5 but Widmark's performance tilted it up to a 6.

Adapted from a story by Eleazar Lipsky, Kiss Of Death is a tough, even frightening Crime/Noir picture that has a gritty realistic feel. Helped enormously by director Henry Hathaway shooting the whole picture in New York, Kiss Of Death is also notable for being the searing debut of Richard Widmark. With no intention of soft soaping the story, the makers cunningly lure us viewers onto the seamy New York streets. Thus with the New York locations as expertly used as they are by Hathaway, Kiss Of Death attains a documentary style similar to other notable genre pictures like Call Northside 777 (also Hathaway).Narrating the picture is Nettie (Coleen Gray in her first credited role), the second wife of Nick Bianco (Victor Mature). Telling of his rough and troubled life, we learn that Bianco was part of a gang who was caught during a jewelry robbery over the Christmas holiday. Lied to by his lawyer, Bianco learns during his prison term that his first wife has killed herself and that his darling two girls have been packed off to an orphanage. Fretting and desperate to see his girls, Bianco makes a deal with Assistant District Attorney Louis D'Angelo (Brian Donlevy), where in exchange for is parole, he will rat out his old gang buddies. D'Angelo is mostly concerned with one man tho, sadistic murderer and boss, Tommy Udo (Widmark). Bianco must pal up to Udo and hope that he doesn't get found out, for if he does, Udo is sure to enact psychotic retribution on Nick and all those close to him.Mature gives one of his finest shows as the pained Bianco forced to squeal, Gray as his second wife is sedate and effective and Donlevy as the crusading Assistant D.A. with a heart is as reliable as he always is. But all are playing second fiddle to Widmark, ferocious stare, dirty laugh and an unnerving falsetto voice, it announced Widmark to the cinematic world, garnered him a contract with Twentieth Century Fox and he never looked back afterwards. Some of his scenes are just mesmerising, including one that is as shocking as it is a lesson in villainy. Taut and tight scripting from the Hecht/Lederer partnership, with rounded characters and a sensible plot, Kiss Of Death is not to be missed by the Crime/Noir genre/style fan. 8.5/10

'm a fan of film noir like any other, but sometimes noir still manages to seethe into the darkest recesses of your soul and create a fearful world that's just a little hard to watch. This great little movie from 1947 features one of the most stunningly fearful monsters in all of cinema, Mr. Tommy Udo, psychopathic gangster that laughs like a hyena and glares like a demon from hell, foiled by our hero Mr. Nick Bianco, a down-on-his-luck ol' guy just trying to make ends meet in a life of crime and ending up nearly losing everything. Once Nick starts rebuilding his life, he ends up on the wrong side of Tommy, and then you're talking tension even much more famous noir didn't quite build up.For it's time, this is an extremely violent movie. For these times, it's still an extremely violent movie. There isn't quite as much of the whole "off-screen violence" thing that most movies of this era used to imply rather than show violence, in order to fit the production code. No, one scene in particular stands out a something more demented than you'd see in a Tarantino flick. The way the movie gets away with it, it seems, is that it has a very strong ethical fiber balancing the majority of the drama, and the nihilistic evil of Udo (seriously the 1940s version of Heath Ledger's Joker) is directly confronted by the everyman hero of Nick, who really is a sweety with his heart set in the right place. The voice-over narration too helps add gauze to the pain, especially with the not-quite-earned happy moralistic statement at the end. This movie would be yet another example of the genre where simply eliminated the voice-over narration would make a stunningly perfect movie, but we have what we have and it's some skillful storytelling despite itself.Calling it noir, as well, is a little iffy. It has the high-contrast lighting and the criminal underground ambiance, but the plot-structure is closer to melodrama and the social anxieties are relieved via sacrifice, getting the girl, and happy ending. However, in all other respects its a surprisingly formal early work in the genre that honestly stands out as one of the greatest examples of the form.--PolarisDiB

"Kiss Of Death" is a tense crime drama which tells the story of a criminal whose main preoccupations and motivations centre on his family. The plot is unveiled in a style which utilises both neo-realist and expressionist elements and the many scenes filmed on location in the actual places referred to in the story are very effective and contribute strongly to the authenticity of the events depicted. The original story was based on actual events and was written by Eleazar Lipsky who himself had previously been a New York Assistant District Attorney. The use of a documentary style to deliver a very human story could've been regarded as incongruous but this potential problem was avoided by using a sympathetic narration by Coleen Gray."Kiss Of Death" is notable for the fact that it provided Richard Widmark with his sensational screen debut which was so successful that it almost immediately elevated him to star status and won him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Eleazar Lipsky was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story.After carrying out a jewellery robbery, Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) is caught by the police as he tries to make his getaway. Assistant DA Louis D'Angelo (Brian Donlevy) encourages him to inform on his three accomplices who had successfully escaped from the crime scene, in exchange for a reduced sentence. Nick has a wife and two daughters but being confident that they would be looked after by his lawyer and accomplices when he is in prison, refuses to co-operate.Three years later, after his wife commits suicide and his daughters are placed in an orphanage, Nick is visited by Nettie (Coleen Gray) who used to be his girls' babysitter. She tells him that his wife had been attacked by one of his gang, Pete Rizzo and this provokes him into offering the Assistant DA all the information he had previously withheld. Due to the passage of time since the crime, the offer of a reduced sentence is no longer available but Nick does get to visit his girls if he agrees to provide some useful details about another unsolved case. Nick obliges by telling D'Angelo about an earlier robbery he carried out with Rizzo and then goes on to tell his lawyer that Rizzo had been the police's informer.Nick's lawyer, Earl Howser (Taylor Holmes) then contacts hit man Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) who goes to Rizzo's home and gets angry when he's told by Rizzo's crippled mother that her son isn't in. In his fury, he binds Ma Rizzo up with some cable and despatches her, in her wheelchair, down a flight of stairs, killing her in the process. Nick had known Udo in prison and after meeting him again, gains enough information from him about the murder he'd carried out for D'Angelo to take the case to court. Nick, who by this time is married to Nettie and is settled in a regular job, bravely testifies but the work of a clever mob attorney ensures that Udo is acquitted. This puts Nick in mortal danger and sets the story up for its powerful finale.In the introduction to the movie, it's explained that as an ex-con, Nick had found it impossible to get a job and with Christmas approaching and no money for presents for his wife and children, he took part in the jewellery store robbery. This predicament is something with which most people can immediately empathise and as such provides a compelling start to this fine movie. Equally riveting, are the brilliantly tense sequences, particularly those seen when the gang are making their escape from the crime scene, when Nick waits nervously for Udo to come and hunt him down and also in the run up to the scene in which Nick and Udo have their final confrontation. The murder of Rizzo's mother is incredibly shocking and Udo's insane giggling is chilling.All the acclaim Richard Widmark received for his portrayal of Udo was thoroughly justified and his depiction of this psychopathic, drug fuelled maniac with his trademark giggle and crazy eyes is exceptional. Victor Mature's performance is perfectly understated as it conveys Nick's basic decency and stoicism without ever becoming maudlin or self-pitying. He was a man whose principles as a criminal prevented him from co-operating with the police, however, when a conflict arose between these principles and his family values, the latter took precedence. Coleen Gray is also faultless as the bubbly, good natured Nettie.