Stanley Kubrick was the director, cinematographer, editor, co-producer and co-writer of his second movie and commendably, despite his lack of experience and an obviously low budget, "Killer's Kiss" proved to be an extremely enjoyable and visually impressive film noir drama.

Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) is a washed up boxer who meets and falls in love with a dance-hall hostess called Gloria Price (Irene Kane) and together they plan to relocate to Seattle. Unfortunately, Gloria's violent employer Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera) has designs on her and dispatches two of his henchmen to deal with Davey. However, due to a couple of unexpected coincidences, the plan goes wrong, the two men kill Davey's manager and the police suspect that Davey is the murderer. In order to prove his innocence, Davey pursues Rapallo and this eventually leads to a final confrontation between the two men when they engage in a spectacular and well choreographed fight for supremacy.

Throughout the story the action takes place in locations which seem claustrophobic and often the framing of the shots emphasises this impression. Davey and Gloria's living areas and Rapallo's office are all small. Camera positions which look down on the characters when they're on the stairs in the couple's tenement building and in the dance-hall entrance area also appear to significantly constrict the space they occupy. During a boxing match in which the two boxers are already confined within the ring, when Davey's opponent stands up to start the bout, he is seen from a low viewpoint behind the still seated Davey, with the result that the space which he visually inhabits is made even smaller as he is then seen framed by Davey's right leg. Even the outdoor sequences in the latter part of the film convey the same impression as narrow streets and alleyways surrounded by very high buildings seem to close in on everyone who enters those areas.

Some good ideas are also used to make the film visually interesting. Davey's face is seen peering through the water in a fishbowl and the viewpoint is the position of the wall behind the bowl.. Similarly, when Rapallo throws a tumbler at a picture on the wall of his office, the glass is seen shattering from the viewpoint of the picture. A dream sequence is photographed in negative and the final confrontation between Davey and Rapallo is staged in a warehouse full of mannequins in a sequence which is rather reminiscent of the "hall of mirrors sequence" in "The Lady From Shanghai". There is also a brilliantly composed shot of the streets down which Davey is being pursued by Rapallo and his men where the lit area of the street and buildings is reduced to a limited area on the bottom left hand side of the frame with everywhere else being bathed in black shadow. Rapallo's thugs are also shown in silhouette when they attack Davey's manager and their elongated shadows on the walls of the alley seem to exaggerate the sense of danger involved.

The night time street scenes shot in Times Square are particularly good and the other New York locations are also portrayed in a manner which powerfully conveys their squalor and potentially threatening atmosphere.

"Killer's Kiss" is rather short and contains some dead pan performances but its real strength lies in its incredible visual impact and its ability to evoke threatening and oppressive atmospheres so successfully.

A young Stanley Kubrick's bare-budget film - perhaps his first "mainline" movie - shows him still in the minor leagues but very close to making it to the Major Leagues. In fact, he did so the following year with "The Killing," a film noir that still ranks among the best. At any rate, this is an opportunity to see Kubrick at work right before he "makes it" in the business.

With an almost-nothing budget you aren't going to draw too many professional actors, and that certainly was the case here, but still is worth watching. It's definitely a "B" noir that is more melodrama than crime until the ending when it gets very, very suspenseful featuring a chase over New York City rooftops and then into abandoned warehouses.

Jamie Smith and Irene Kane are the stars and if you've never heard of them, it's probably because they weren't exactly Humphey Bogart and Bette Davis, acting-wise. The other star, Frank Silvera, at least is a name I recognized.

Overall, the best feature may be the camera-work. It gives us a preview of the visual talents that Kubrick would bring to the big screen in following decade. On its own merits, if you are a film noir fan, you'll want this in your collection.