The movie John Carpenter always dreamed of remaking: “I love that opening scene”
If every cult director in the world got together to form their own country, they’d probably elect John Carpenter as its first president. As an innovator in the horror genre, he is untouchable. Without him, there would be no Halloween, The Fog, or The Thing. That’s not a world anybody wants to live in. Chuck in the likes of Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, and They Live, and that’s a seriously impressive CV.
However, as with all directors, Carpenter’s career is full of films he never got around to making. He has spoken about his desire to make a Godzilla movie, which we can all agree needs to happen as soon as possible. He’s also a big fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series, so he was probably annoyed that nobody asked him to direct any of its film adaptations.
This idea also extends to films from other directors that Carpenter wishes he’d made. In an interview with Criterion, the instantly recognisable maestro picked out ten of his favourite movies of all time. Alongside classics like Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, he opted for something with a lower profile—the Robert Aldrich noir thriller Kiss Me Deadly.
Starring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, and a debuting Cloris Leachman, the movie follows gritty private investigator, Meeker’s Mike Hammer on his latest job. After picking up a hitchhiker on a random stretch of road, Hammer is attacked by a group of thugs, who kill his new passenger and attempt to do away with him, too. This leads him to look into the matter and embark on a quest that soon unravels into something far-reaching and sinister.
“I love that opening scene with Cloris Leachman running down the highway,” Carpenter admitted, “And Ralph Meeker’s performance. Just all of it! This film was really daring for its day.”
He spoke about his desire to remake the movie for modern times but wondered aloud if such a feat was even possible. “It has such a contemporary energy,” he noted, “But it’s ultimately so tied to the time in which it was made”. The movie was released in 1955, when the director was seven years old and America was gripped by moral panic. Aldrich was brought to the attention of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, who deemed that his work was having a negative effect on the nation’s youth.
Ultimately, the world saw sense, and Kiss Me Deadly is widely regarded as a classic. Not only did it influence future noir movies, but it also had a positive impact on the emerging French New Wave movement; Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut were both big fans. Quentin Tarantino directly references the movie in Pulp Fiction. The mysterious briefcase that features in his violent anthology is modelled on the strange box that forms the basis of Aldrich’s work. Or, as Carpenter referred to it, “the great whatsit”.
It might not be a household name, but Kiss Me Deadly has clearly left quite the mark on the film industry. So many acclaimed filmmakers coming out in support of it is a sign of the legacy it has left, even if the US government weren’t too pleased when it was first released.
