Rat nest

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Movie
German title Rat nest
Original title Kiss Me Deadly
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1955
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Robert Aldrich
script AI Bezzerides
production Robert Aldrich
Victor Saville
music Frank De Vol
camera Ernest Laszlo
cut Michael Luciano
occupation

Kiss Me Deadly (Original title: Kiss Me Deadly ) is in black and white twisted American film noir directed by Robert Aldrich from the year 1955 . The film is based on Mickey Spillane's novel Rhapsody in Lead , but deviates considerably from its literary model in terms of content.

action

The private eye Mike Hammer is stopped in the middle of the night from a young woman named Christina, who is apparently on the run. He takes her in his car. At a gas station, Christina gives the gas station attendant a letter with instructions to send it off.

As the two drive on, they are pushed off the road by another car and dragged off. Christina is brutally tortured. The only thing Mike can see of her tormentor before he passes out are blue suede shoes. When Christina cannot be moved to reveal her secret, she and Hammer are put in his car and rolled down a slope. Christina dies, but Hammer survives the accident and wakes up in a hospital. He decides to clear up the background of the murder and find out what Christina knew. His friend, the policeman Pat, advises him not to interfere in the matter.

Mike goes to see Christina's former roommate, Lili Carver. She tells him that Christina was afraid of something and was picked up by the police one day.

The next day, Mike's friend and assistant Velda reports on a conversation between Ray Diker, an acquaintance of Christina's, and an art dealer. The two were talking about a certain Dr. Soberin. At a meeting with the art dealer, Velda wants to find out more about this person.

When Mike learns that Velda was caught on the date but is still alive, he drives to the gas station and asks the gas station attendant for the letter that Christina had received. To his astonishment he learns that it was addressed to him. He drives home and finds the letter in his mail. The message is "don't forget me" . Two gangsters who ambushed him in his apartment overpower Mike and take him to a beach house, where he is tied to a bed. The man in the blue shoes gives him an injection of a truth serum, which is supposed to get him to tell the truth and reveal his secret. Mike manages to free himself from his bonds and flee through the window.

Back at home, he tries to understand the meaning of the words “don't forget me” . It turns out that this is the title of a poem by Christina Rossetti in which it says: Even the darkness of death and bitter pain leaves you a trace of what we once thought . Mike concludes that Christina was able to hide something shortly before her death. In the morgue, after bribing the doctor without success and then breaking his hand, he was given a key that she had swallowed. There is a small suitcase in the locker. When Mike tries to open it, he is blinded by a bright light and suffers a burn on his wrist.

On his return, Mike is expected by the police who ask for the key from him. He also learns from his friend Pat that the real Lili Carver has been dead for a week and that the contents of the suitcase are atomic material that was stolen as part of the Manhattan Project .

Mike calls in Dr. Soberin's practice. He is told that the doctor is in his beach house. Mike assumes this is the same house he was previously held in and drives there. Dr. Soberin, who turns out to be the man in the blue shoes, is there with his assistant Gabrielle, who had previously posed as Lili Carver. Gabrielle doesn't know what's in the mysterious case, but she claims the contents for herself. She shoots Dr. Soberin, who expressly warns her dying not to open the box.

Mike arrives and is shot by Gabrielle. She opens the suitcase and goes up in flames due to the enormous radiation. Mike sets out to find Velda, who is being held captive in the house. He finds her and they escape together into the open. When they reach the sea, the beach house explodes.

background

Rattennest is based on Mickey Spillane's novel Kiss Me, Deadly (German: Rhapsody in lead ) from 1952. Robert Aldrich said in an interview in 1974 that he “took the title and threw the book away”. In fact, the novel is about drug smuggling and the mafia involved . The nuclear threat aspect apparently comes from Aldrich and the screenwriter Bezzerides.

Filming began on November 21, 1954 and lasted only three weeks. The cost of producing the B movie was $ 410,000. In his contract, Aldrich had secured complete artistic control over the project. The actress Cloris Leachman made her screen debut in Rattennest . The famous final scene was filmed on Malibu Beach .

The film premiered in Los Angeles on May 18, 1955 and grossed over $ 900,000 worldwide, including $ 726,000 in the United States. It was released in German cinemas on July 6, 1956. Rattennest met with severe criticism because of its brutal content. For a long time it was only seen in a shortened version in Germany and Great Britain. In the United States, the state Kefauver Commission named the film in 1955 as the greatest threat to American youth.

Rattennest is now considered a classic of film noir , which combines all the important elements of this style. Mike Hammer is the uncompromising, brutal antihero who by chance gets into a fateful position. Christina takes on the role of the seductive femme fatale . The film's gritty and pessimistic atmosphere reflects the paranoia and fear of a nuclear attack during the Cold War .

The screenwriter AI Bezzerides was during the McCarthy era on the black list of the House of Un-American Activities Committee , Robert Aldrich also was suspected as communists sympathizer. Therefore, the film is often perceived as a commentary on the domestic political situation in the United States at the time. In a conversation with François Truffaut , Aldrich described the main character Mike Hammer as a cynical fascist with an anti-democratic sentiment, whom he personally detested.

Rattennest is also considered to be a visual masterpiece, which is particularly impressive due to Ernest Laszlo's unusual camera work.

In 1999 the film was entered into the National Film Registry . The motif of the mysterious suitcase, the glowing contents of which the viewer never sees, was later taken up again in the films Repoman , Ronin and Pulp Fiction (see also MacGuffin ).

Different versions

When Rattennest hit American cinemas in 1955, it ended with the beach house exploding, apparently killing Mike Hammer and Velda.

However, the script had a different ending. The two protagonists should survive and struggle to save themselves into the sea. A short excerpt from this scene could be seen in the official trailer, but not included in the finished film.

The reason for this change is unknown. The uncut version of the film was shown in large parts of Europe.

The missing footage, long thought to be lost, was in Robert Aldrich's estate and was donated to the Directors Guild of America after his death. The DVD, released in 1997, contains the end in its full length.

criticism

  • Ulrich Behrens in the film headquarters: The final scene lights up, almost blinds us, burns the sand out of our eyes, lets us see again where we are and why we are in the cinema. It hits like a bomb and about itself. And just as Hammer looks puzzled at the pseudo-inferno, we look just as puzzled at a film that wants to show us, very bluntly and very unpretentiously, why we need cinema.
  • The French film magazine Les Cahiers du cinéma described Rattennest as the crime film of tomorrow, unbridled and detached from its own roots. and called Robert Aldrich the first director of the atomic age .
  • The director and screenwriter Paul Schrader regarded the film as the masterpiece of film noir, for the critic Steven Scheuer it represented the apotheosis of this style.
  • Raymond Durgnat in SEXUS EROS KINO: In fact, KISS ME DEADLY is the greatest criminal fantasy since Fritz Lang's "Testament of Dr. Mabuse". The mechanics of the dramaturgy are a little baroque, the mood unrealistic. The atmosphere is stiff, frosty. The characters are dehumanized; they have the ominous serenity of schizophrenics ... The composition of the settings corresponds to the character of the hero: it is bold, frigid, eternally enigmatic. Each image is designed for depth and volume , quoted from Hahn / Jansen, Lexicon of Science Fiction Films

Awards

In 1999, Rat's Nest was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress .

literature

  • Ronald M. Hahn / Volker Jansen: Lexicon of Science Fiction Films. 720 films from 1902 to 1983 , Munich (Heyne) 1983, p. 416.

Individual proof

  1. World premieres according to IMDb

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