Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

source: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

"Kiss the blood off my hands" is a difficult film noir, I think it comes from the actor direction. I found Burt Lancaster sometimes too excessive (was the whip scene necessary?) and far too nervous, and I wondered how can the so calm Joan Fontaine could fall in love with Burt. Robert Newton, who was excellent in "Hatter's castle" and many more, here has too much ticks on his face, it spoils his talent. Fortunetely, the expressionist cinematography with huge camera movements by Russell Metty is extraordinary, the introduction is puzzling, and it fits well with the great settings by Nathan Juran.

The leads do an adequate job with the material they are given, and they are at the height of their physical attractiveness, charm and star power. This film was written by three people. That might have been part of the problem. It just doesn't build up enough tension or suspense for my taste. The antagonist just isn't given enough leverage, power or menace. This is a bit of an Offbeat noir, even original. The stars are so watchable they make up for the inadequacies and simpleness of the script. Had the script and story been fleshed out more into a 90 or 120 minute film this might have ended up a classic.

It would have been very difficult saying no to seeing 'Blood on My Hands'. The title was so wonderfully lurid and attention-grabbing (who could resist such a film title?), the premise was a great one and Burt Lancaster, Joan Fontaine and Robert Newton have all given great performances in their respective careers before and since. 'Blood on My Hands' is definitely well worth the watch and has a lot of good to great elements. Is it a film deserving of more credit? To me it is one of those films. Didn't think though at the same time that 'Blood on My Hands' quite lived up to its title and could have done more with its premise, hence what is meant by my review summary. Much of it was there and correct, it just needed more. Did think that it could have been more lurid and bolder, parts are a touch tame, like the chemistry between Lancaster and Fontaine that just lacked the intensity it could have done. Some of the script could have been tauter, but faring the weakest was the ending which didn't ring true and felt rather tacked on. If a bolder ending was initially intended, it should have been intact from personal view. Can't fault the production values however, with the moody photography being particularly striking. Norman Foster directs with flair and doesn't let the film become tedious while Miklos Rozsa's haunting music score is close to being one of his better ones. The script does intrigue and doesn't get too overly melodramatic, and the story is generally compelling and has tension despite needing more to it. Lancaster is suitably brooding and charismatic, if not quite disappearing into the role. Fontaine is touchingly sensitive and just lovely to watch. Even better is Newton, he exaggerates at times but he was clearly relishing the role while also being sinister enough. Overall, worth watching and pretty good, but with such a title and premise there could and should have been more. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Probably one of the first cinematic attempts to deal with PTSD and the psychological after-effects of war on its survivors, "Kiss The Blood Of My Hands" (one of the best titles ever) is also a terrific little film noir, with exemplary use of light, shadow, smoke & rain. The three main (and in fact only important) actors offer strong characterizations. Joan Fontaine (an actress of both inner and outer beauty) is lovely, and Burt Lancaster bares his impressive upper torso for an unexpected whipping scene! Robert Newton is perfectly sleazy as the blackmailer. The only thing missing from the movie is a proper ending - though some viewers may even like the open-endedness of the conclusion. *** out of 4.

One of those supreme noirs replenished with all the obligatory ingredients - a man lost in society and almost outlawed at the mercy of his relentless fate, the tender-hearted woman who just can't help helping him although she knows it's against all common sense, and a particularly diabolical "helper" doing his best to drag Burt further down the gutter of criminality with more consequences than he bargained for. It's a very dark film, the dominating element is the London fog illustrating the sword of Damocles hanging over Burt by actually covering almost every street scene in an ominous haze, which makes the cinematography the more suggestive and moody. Miklos Rosza's music makes the drama complete. We don't know how it will end, like so many of Carol Reed's best thrillers we are left with unanswerable questions, and this film reminds very much of "Odd Man Out" - it's the same kind of hopelessness, the same entrapment, the same despair, while only Joan Fontaine makes a difference - she is not like Kathleen Ryan. It's a fascinating film for its denseness of intrigue with an action constantly tying itself up in more and harder knots, and no wonder almost everyone gets confused, which also the audience must be, with almost an obligation to have it all taken over from the beginning...

With such a lurid, evocative title, I entered into 'Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)' with inflated expectations of a film steeped in decadence and depravity. I've often considered the classic film noir mood to be the primal juxtaposition of sex and violence, and this is exactly the stuff promised by Norman Foster's film: one envisions a man's bloodied hands, tinged from murder, and a femme fatale's gentle touch, not only embracing but encouraging her man's brutality. Alas, the true meaning of the title is less literal, and certainly less salacious, and concerns the notion of redemption through love. Burt Lancaster's traumatised war veteran, a man with stunted emotions and a short fuse, leaves behind a shady past of misdeeds he'd rather forget. His salvation comes in the form of Joan Fontaine's lonely, war-grieving nurse, who offers understanding and the hope of a better life. An admittedly conventional storyline is elevated by Foster's keen visual style, with the image of an advancing, goggle-eyed Robert Newton recalling the flamboyant eccentricity of an Orson Welles picture. Foster's film opens in a pub, as the drunken patrons are shuffled into the street at closing time. There sits Bill Saunders (Lancaster) at the bar, lonely and brooding, so utterly distanced from society that he refuses to follow his fellow drinkers out the door. When the publican becomes forceful, Bill suddenly jerks into action, striking out with a heavy fist that leaves his aggressor dead on the floor. "Chum, you've been and gone and done it," remarks one stunned onlooker (Newton) gravely; "he's dead. You've killed him." This is what film noir is all about: that fundamental moment when there's no turning back. After a thrilling chase through the London streets (though I notice that the characters still drive left-handed vehicles), Bill finds refuge in the apartment of Jane Wharton (Fontaine), whose unexpected compassion leads him to seek a relationship with her. At this point, the film quickly and inexplicably forgets that Bill is a fugitive wanted for murder. Or, perhaps more accurately, it waits for us to forget. Only after Bill Saunders has reestablished his place in society does his past rear its ugly head, in the form of Robert Newton's grotesquely cavalier black-market fraudster. This isn't the first time in Lancaster's career that his character's past had inescapably returned to haunt him: in Siodmak's 'The Killers (1946),' Swede Andersen accepts his fate with a kind of subdued defeatism. However, 'Kiss the Blood Off My Hands' is less fatalistic towards its protagonist, opting instead for an open-ended conclusion that wavers between hope and resignation. That Bill is ultimately offered a second-chance at redemption is quite appropriate, given that he is a victim, not necessarily of his own sense of greed or immorality, but of the War. His unbalanced personality, unwittingly corrupted by the twisted ethics of combat, is a testament to the psychological scars of warfare, previously explored in Wyler's 'The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)' and more peripherally in George Marshall's film noir 'The Blue Dahlia (1946).'

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands is directed by Norman Foster and adapted to screenplay by Leonardo Bercovici and Walter Bernstein from the novel of the same name written by Gerald Butler. It stars Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster and Robert Newton. Music is by Miklós Rózsa and cinematography by Russell Metty. It's a film that has a very up and down relationship among film noir aficionados, which is perfectly understandable. In many ways it's a frustrating viewing experience, because it has some truly great moments and from a visual perspective it's moody personified. In fact the back drops are pure noir dressage, even if the American studio recreation of post war London doesn't exactly look as it should. Things start brilliantly with a brooding Lancaster accidentally killing the landlord of a public house with one punch, and then subsequently he is pursued through the dank streets of London in a chase sequence of some gusto. Upon entering a bedroom window he is met by a startled Fontaine, and thus begins a love affair between two opposites. We learn that Lancaster's character is a scarred man from the war, that he was in a Prisoner of War camp, and that he just can't catch a break. Hanging around the vicinity is Newton's cockney low life, who witnessed the killing of the publican and uses this fact to blackmail Lancaster into doing an illegal job for him. Film is 98% shot at night time, Metty's black and white photography tonally oppressive, this marries up nicely with the trials and tribulations of Lancaster throughout the picture. Fontaine is a radiant foil (this in spite of her suffering morning sickness as she was in early pregnancy), in fact both leading actors work very hard to make the thin screenplay work. But thin it is, and it sadly doesn't deliver a whammy at the finish. It's a shame that the writing couldn't do justice to the themes of the plot, this is after all a story involving killings, violence, corporal punishment and dissociative disorder. What promises to be a tale of doomed lovers, ends up being a troubled romantic melodrama dressed up in noir clobber. That said, it's never less than enjoyable and the high points (visuals, acting, Rózsa's score) make it worth time invested. 6.5/10

In a rare beefcake film Burt shows off in this rare British-based film noir. There were skillful in-jokes about Burt's circus skills within the film in at least two scenes. At one point in the film he gets whipped with his shirt off. The old guideline of you can show someone getting whipped, but you can't hear it hitting. Or you can hear the hitting, but not show the whip hitting the skin remains true within this movie. The illuminating Joan as a blonde shows her range as an actress as well as her slight British accent. Again Burt was good as a man trying to overcome his moments of instant rage. The quality of the new 35mm print was incredible.

Burt Lancaster's seventh film (and sixth noir!) 'relocates' him to London where he is an ill-tempered Canadian seaman and former WWII P.O.W. who accidentally kills the bartender of a pub for curtailing his boozing at closing time; a fellow patron (played with customary hamminess by the one and only Robert Newton) witnesses the event and plagues Lancaster throughout the picture to act as 'inside man' in a pharmaceutical robbery. This turn of events comes about through Lancaster's improbable relationship with a besotted nurse (Joan Fontaine) in whose flat he first takes refuge. Despite an evocative title, appropriately moody camera-work and musical accompaniment (courtesy of Russell Metty and Miklos Rozsa) and even a couple of Wellesian directorial touches (read tilted camera angles) thrown in for good measure by Norman Foster – whose best-known credit remains JOURNEY INTO FEAR (1943) – the film faces an insurmountable hurdle in the unconvincing central romance that culminates in an exceedingly phony redemptive ending. More's the pity, therefore, that this finale had just been preceded by the film's best sequences which depict Newton's double-death at the separate hands of first Fontaine and later Lancaster!