A Kiss Before Dying [1956]


Director	Gerd Oswald
Selected Cast	Robert Wagner as Bud Corliss
	Jeffrey Hunter as Gordon Grant
	Virginia Leith as Ellen Kingship
	Joanne Woodward as Dorothy 'Dorie' Kingship
	Mary Astor as Mrs. Corliss
	George Macready as Leo Kingship
	Robert Quarry as Dwight Powell

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Comments and Reviews


Magic Marmalade 6th Aug 2024		Rated 7/10 A reasonable Hitchcock clone... but lacking that certain something. Robert Wagner's character: college kid, Bud, finds himself in a dilemma when his girlfriend gets pregnant and wants to get married, so he decides she needs to have an "accident" (in particular, a fatal one), and so the first half of this is following him in his convoluted attempts to make this happen... ...The second half then turns into a kind of Agatha Christie Sleuth kind of movie, as the focus shifts away from him, and onto the girlfriend's sister, who won't take "accident" for a reasonable explanation, and begins to hunt down her killer, unknowingly coming into contact with Wagner, who then attempts to weasel his way into her affections... and, by way of marriage, daddy's mining empire. There's an odd cheeriness to the title card music which doesn't seem to fit the movie, and I was more than aware as the movie went along that if you took the music score away, the action is really rather pedestrian, and somewhat lacking in that most essential Hitchcock ingredient: Suspense. There's no real tension in this, and I couldn't help but wonder what kind of masterpiece this would have been if Hitchcock himself had actually made it! But overall, a fairly decent stab at this kind of thing. (Cinematography in places is breath-taking though.. especially the scenes where a car is present) 2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?

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