Editing Kiss Me Deadly (section)

==Release==
===Critical response and analysis===
Critics have generally viewed the film as a metaphor for the paranoia and fear of nuclear war that prevailed during the [[Cold War]] era.<ref>Prince, Stephen, ''Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American Film'', Praeger/Greenwood, 1992, {{ISBN|0-275-93662-7}}.</ref> "The great whatsit," as Velda refers to the object of Hammer's quest, turns out to be a mysterious valise, hot to the touch because of the dangerous, glowing substance it contains, a metaphor for the atomic bomb. The film has been described as "the definitive, apocalyptic, nihilistic, science-fiction film noir of all time – at the close of the classic noir period."<ref name="filmsite">{{cite web |url=http://www.filmsite.org/kiss.html |title=Kiss Me Deadly |last=Dirks |first=Tim |work=Filmsite.org}}</ref> A leftist at the time of the [[Hollywood blacklist]], Bezzerides denied any conscious intention for this metaphor in his script, saying that "I was having fun with it. I wanted to make every scene, every character, interesting."<ref>[http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2169227.ece Vallance, Tom] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001060100/http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2169227.ece |date=2007-10-01 }}. ''The Independent'', Obituary, "A.I. Bezzerides. No-nonsense novelist/screenwriter," January 20, 2007. Last accessed: March 25, 2008.</ref>

Film critic Nick Schager wrote, "Never was Mike Hammer's name more fitting than in ''Kiss Me Deadly'', Robert Aldrich's blisteringly nihilistic noir in which star Ralph Meeker embodies Mickey Spillane's legendary P.I. with brute force savagery... The gumshoe's subsequent investigation into the woman's death doubles as a lacerating indictment of modern society's dissolution into physical/moral/spiritual degeneracy – a reversion that ultimately leads to nuclear apocalypse and man's return to the primordial sea – with the director's knuckle-sandwich cynicism pummeling the genre's romantic fatalism into a bloody pulp. 'Remember me?' Aldrich's sadistic, fatalistic masterpiece is impossible to forget".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/features/bnoir.asp|title=B Noir|author=Slant Staff|work=[[Slant Magazine]]|date=May 5, 2006|accessdate=November 7, 2022}}</ref> [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports that 97% of its critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 8.1/10, based on 37 reviews. The consensus states, "An intriguing, wonderfully subversive blend of art and commerce, ''Kiss Me Deadly'' is an influential noir classic."<ref>[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kiss_me_deadly/ ''Kiss Me Deadly''] at [[Rotten Tomatoes]]. Last accessed: February 22, 2013.</ref>

[[François Truffaut]] wrote, "To appreciate ''Kiss Me Deadly'', you have to love movies passionately and to have a vivid memory of those evenings when you saw [[Scarface (1932 film)|''Scarface'']], ''[[Under Capricorn]]'', ''[[The Blood of a Poet|Le sang d'un poète (Blood of a Poet)]]'', ''[[Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne]]'', and ''[[The Lady From Shanghai]]''. We have loved films that had only one idea, or twenty, or even fifty. In Alrdich's films, it is not unusual to encounter a new idea with each shot. In this movie the inventiveness is such that we don't know what to look at--the images are almost too full, too fertile. Watching a film like this is such an intense experience that we want it to go last for hours. It is easy to picture its author as a man overflowing with vitality, as much at ease behind a camera as [[Henry Miller]] facing a blank page. This is the film of a young director who is not yet worried about restraint."<ref>{{cite book| author=[[François Truffaut]]| title=The Films In My Life| date=1975| page=94}}</ref>

===Accolades===
{| class="wikitable unsortable plainrowheaders" style="width:50%;"
|-
! style="width:20%;"| Institution
! style="width:5%;"| Year
! style="width:30%;"| Category
! style="width:12%;"| Result
! style="width:1%;" | {{Abbr|Ref.|Reference(s)}}
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"| [[American Film Institute]]
| 2001
| [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills]]
| {{nom}}
| style="text-align:center;"| <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.filmsite.org/afi400thrillers.html|work=[[Filmsite.org]]|publisher=[[AMC (TV channel)|AMC]]|title=100 Greatest American Thrillers|author=American Film Institute|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120802180622/http://www.filmsite.org/afi400thrillers.html|archive-date=August 2, 2012}}</ref>
|-
| 2005
| [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes]]
| {{nom}}{{efn|'''Nominated for dialogue''': ''Christina'': "Get me to that bus stop and forget you ever saw me. If we don't make that bus stop..."; ''Mike Hammer'': "We will."; ''Christina'': "If we don't, remember me."}}
| style="text-align:center;"| <ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.filmsite.org/afi400quotes.html|title=Greatest Movie Quotes|author=American Film Institute|publisher=AMC|work=Filmsite.org|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200515045552/https://www.filmsite.org/afi400quotes.html|archive-date=May 15, 2020}}</ref>
|-
| 2008
| [[AFI's 10 Top 10|AFI's 10 Top 10 – Mystery Film]]
| {{nom}}
| style="text-align:center;"|
|-
|}

===Home media===
[[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] released the film on VHS as part of their "Vintage Classics" collection in 1999,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Kiss Me Deadly [VHS]|asin = 6304508549}}</ref> and on DVD in 2001, with the alternative ending as a Special Feature.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Me-Deadly-Ralph-Meeker/dp/B00005AUK9/ref=tmm_dvd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1589517545&sr=8-1|publisher=Amazon|title=Kiss Me Deadly [DVD]|date=19 June 2001 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200515044040/https://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Me-Deadly-Ralph-Meeker/dp/B00005AUK9/ref=tmm_dvd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1589517545&sr=8-1|archive-date=May 15, 2020}}</ref> A digitally restored version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by [[The Criterion Collection]] in June 2011, and also includes the alternative ending.<ref name=criterion/>

===Revised ending===
The original ending of the American release of the film shows Hammer and Velda escaping from the burning house, staggering into the ocean as the words "The End" come over them on the screen. Sometime after its first release, the ending was altered on the film's negative, removing 82 seconds of footage showing the escape, and instead superimposing "The End" over the burning house. This implied that Hammer and Velda perished in the blaze, which some have interpreted as an apocalyptic ending.<ref name=revised>{{cite magazine|url=https://ew.com/article/1997/06/27/revised-ending-kiss-me-deadly/|magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]]|date=June 27, 1997|title=The revised ending of ''Kiss Me Deadly''|url-status=live|author=Poland, David|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200515050135/https://ew.com/article/1997/06/27/revised-ending-kiss-me-deadly/|archive-date=May 15, 2020}}</ref> In 1997, the original ending was restored after the missing footage was discovered in the vaults of the Directors Guild by [[Glenn Erickson]].<ref name=revised/>