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Poster for Kiss Me Deadly
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Released
1955 · FILM

Kiss Me Deadly

A hard‑boiled private eye picks up a mysterious hitchhiker only to watch her brutally killed, propelling him into a deadly chase against ruthless gangsters and a shadowy conspiracy that could destroy everything he loves.

“Blood red kisses! White hot thrills! Mickey Spillane’s latest H-bomb!”

Directed by
Robert Aldrich
Written by
Mickey Spillane, A I Bezzerides
Color
Black & White
Runtime
106 min
CrimeDramaFilm-Noir

Synopsis

One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer regains semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, motivated by both vengeance and the belief that "something big" is behind the events, decides to pursue the case.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 16

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Michael LucianoShot by Ernest LaszloScored by Frank De Vol

Box Office

1955 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.8× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$726K

Budget$410K
Worldwide gross$726K
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Rattennestde
  • En quatrième vitessefr
  • Un bacio e una pistolait

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