A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

★ 6.2 1h 34m IMDb

A college student tries to get rich quick by wooing two wealthy sisters.

A Kiss Before Dying

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Cast

Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner as Bud Corliss Age 96 · Detroit, Michigan, USA Robert John Wagner (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television. A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American televisio...
Jeffrey Hunter
Jeffrey Hunter as Gordon Grant Died 1969 · New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Jeffrey Hunter (November 25, 1926 – May 27, 1969) was a versatile American actor who made a significant impact on the film and television industry. He is best known for his portrayal of Martin Pawley...
Virginia Leith
Virginia Leith as Ellen Kingship Died 2019 · Cleveland, Ohio, USA ​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Virginia Leith (October 15, 1925 - November 4, 2019) was an American film and television actress. Leith starred in a few films, with her most productive period...
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Woodward as Dorothy ('Dorie') Kingship Age 96 · Thomasville, Georgia, USA Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress, producer, and philanthropist. She is best known for her performance in The Three Faces of Eve (1957), which earned...
Mary Astor
Mary Astor as Mrs. Corliss Died 1987 · Quincy, Illinois, USA Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 - September 25, 1987) was an American actress. Most remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long moti...
George Macready
George Macready as Leo Kingship Died 1973 · Providence, Rhode Island, USA George Peabody Macready, Jr. (August 29, 1899 – July 2, 1973) was an American stage, film, and television actor often cast in roles as polished villains. Description above from the Wikipedia article...

Audience Reviews

John Chard 7/10 Nov 18, 2017
Love conquers all...

A Kiss Before Dying is directed by Gerd Oswald and adapted to screenplay by Lawrence Roman from the novel of the same name written by Ira Levin. It stars Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith, Jeffrey Hunter and Mary Astor. A CinemaScope/De Luxe Color production, music is by Lionel Newman and cinematography by Lucien Ballard.

Plot basically finds Wagner as a scheming pretty boy willing to commit murder in order to reach the riches of an inheritance. Story bubbles away nicely as Bud Corlis (Wagner) and Dorothy Kingship (Woodward), he sly and distant - she vulnerable and love struck, both hold court with performances of merit. The spiky edge comes by way of knowing what Bud is up to, and that poor Dorothy is completely oblivious, and when the key moment comes, it's shocking and really perches ones expectation levels to the edge of the seat.

Sadly the second half of the movie doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first, for here the focus shifts from a twist into an investigation by Dorothy's sister, Ellen (Leith), who refuses to accept the official party line surrounding her sister. It's all very competently mounted, but the pervading sense of menace has dissipated and in place is just an average murder mystery.

Wagner and Woodward are very good, Leith not so much, while Hunter as a pipe smoking professor is badly miscast and Astor is under used. Oswald's direction is fine, with some nifty long takes and some very cheeky visual jokes that only become apparent once story has run its course. Ballard's Scope photography is impressive, managing to make the bright colourful city surrounds always appear as threatening, and Newman's musical arrangements are indicative of the murder mystery splinter of 50s film noir.

The themes at the core of the picture are daring and interesting, though more should have been made of the hinted at fact that Bud is a troubled war veteran. It's not all that it can be, the second half diluting the whole as it were, but this is still a tasty noir thriller worthy of catching. 7/10

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