1. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Dir. Robert Aldrich
Most critics and historians point towards Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958) as the last official film noir—though a case could probably also be made for Allen Baron’s Blast of Silence (1961). Regardless, if you want to see the best send-off to the noir genre, look no further than Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly, a film which ends figuratively and literally with an apocalyptic, world-ending bang. Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), a Los Angeles private eye with a chip on his shoulder the size of a mountain, picks up a beautiful escaped mental patient one night while driving down a rural road. No sooner have they introduced themselves than they are abducted by violent thugs, throwing Hammer into a race to find one of the cinema’s greatest MacGuffins—a mysterious “great whatsit.” There are no happy endings here, just a barrage of torture, murder, traitors, and double-crosses. Hammer’s quest sees the culmination of nearly two decades of American war-time and post-war anxieties, paranoia, and nihilism. Faced with America’s loss in the Korean War and a new one brewing on the horizon with Vietnam, what other method of coping could a fatigued public expect but self-destruction? With one final bow, film noir solemnly complied.
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