Then, the finale is moronic: why Mature lets himself be killed (though the finale's voiceover let us think otherwise) instead of shooting it out with Widmark? 7\10
The ending was ridiculous. Would Mature really walk out there and be a sitting duck for Widmark, in the hope that somehow he would survive the shots from point blank range? They'd just said that Widmark would get life just for having a gun; shouldn't the cops have picked him up in the car just for that? Mature was pretty much committing suicide by doing that. And after all that, he actually survives 3 shots in the gut?? Really? That was bullshit, done for the sake of a happy ending.
... the finale is moronic: why Mature lets himself be killed (though the finale's voiceover let us think otherwise) instead of shooting it out with Widmark? 7\10
Yea, it was a bit of a stretch. I have a personal connection to the this film. The sequence when Nick gets out of prison & goes straight the little neighborhood where he lives is along side Astoria Park (the Two Bridges in the bg.) As a kid in the late 50s I used to go there with the folks sit on the hill on a blanket and watch the ships and the various tugs struggle with rail car floats, garbage scows, and gas & oil barges as they fought the treacherous current at Hell Gate in the East River. Check out what it was like from this more recent clip & check the end where the action is sped up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc0PC8BRMD0
did you watch the remake? Looks to me like the house of the main character is on a very similar block as Mature's house in the original.David Caruso is no better than average (first time I'd ever seen him; I've never watched CSI or NYPD Blue); Nicolas Cage certainly can't compete with Richard Widmark. Overall it's not bad, though.
hey'd just said that Widmark would get life just for having a gun; shouldn't the cops have picked him up in the car just for that? Mature was pretty much committing suicide by doing that. And after all that, he actually survives 3 shots in the gut?? Really? That was bullshit, done for the sake of a happy ending.
I've just seen this. I would imagine that the wheelchair scene still shocks fresh viewers of the movie. It did me. Widmark reminds me of the Frank Gorshin's Riddler character out of the old TV batman series. But Widmark's giggle is more evil of course.
An interesting observation. The two actors in fact played brothers in "Warlock" and were credible as such.
As I wrote, Mature wasn't probably meant to survive: it is evident that the voiceover explaining he survived was probably glued after production.But the scene with Widmark would imply that isn't enough to find yourself in a car where a gun is to be incriminated. In fact Widmark lets his henchman taking care of Mature. Only after Mature taunts him he decides to take the gun from his sidekick.
interesting note on wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_of_Death_(1947_film)#Filming"A deleted scene involving Nick's wife Maria (who was played by Patricia Morison) was cut from the film. In this scene, a gangster (played by Henry Brandon) who is supposed to look out for her while Nick is in prison rapes her. Afterwards, Maria commits suicide by sticking her head in the kitchen oven and turning on the gas. Both scenes were cut from the original print at the insistence of the censors, who wanted no depiction of either a rape or a suicide, so although Morison's name appears in the credits, she does not appear in the film at all. Mention is made later in the film about Mature's wife's suicide and a now obscure reference is made by Nettie that the unseen gangster Rizzo contributed to the wife's downfall."
