Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

The Death Kiss Blu-ray Movie Review

Pucker up.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 15, 2014

Oh, to have been a Tiffany Studios press representative back when The Death Kiss premiered in 1932. This so-called Poverty Row studio probably didn’t even have much of a press department, but it could have capitalized cheekily on the reuniting of three players from the previous year’s mega-hit Dracula with tag lines like:

The old gang is back! As if they never un-died!

Or perhaps emblazoned over an illustration featuring Bela Lugosi:

He vants to solve your crime!

Lugosi was in fact featured rather heavily in the advertising that Tiffany managed to churn out to promote the film, this despite the fact that the actor is very much a supporting player in what ironically turns out to be an early talkie era version (of sorts, anyway) of Robert Altman’s The Player. There’s certainly nothing akin to Altman’s technical mastery (like that famous opening sequence) on display in The Death Kiss, nor even any high-falutin’ intellectual content, but much like the Altman film The Death Kiss attempts to peel back the artificial veneer of a movie studio that is in chaos after an inexplicable murder. The Death Kiss has achieved a perhaps unwarranted cachet through the years since it did in fact reunite Lugosi, David Manners and Edward Van Sloan from Dracula. And the film was famous in its day for hand tinted “color” snippets (recreated here) as well as for huge box office receipts it generated in New York City when it played at the 6,000 seat (!) Roxy Theater on Manhattan’s Seventh Avenue, after the Roxy introduced so-called “popular prices” (i.e., big discounts) in order to lure prospective audiences away from the then new and lustrous Radio City Music Hall. The Death Kiss is probably best appreciated by modern audiences as an interesting curio which sees Lugosi playing it relatively straight, with an okay but hardly mind boggling murder mystery at its core, and some brief but fun looks at the actual Tiffany Studios, such as they were in the early thirties.

The Death Kiss may not have a 7 minute and 47 second unedited opening shot, but it does start with a fun dolly in to a car, where a glamorous woman announces to her auto companions that she’ll kiss a “mark” to identify him for some reason. She exits the car and plants a wet one on a surprised dapper gentleman standing outside of a nightclub waiting for a taxi. The man tells the valet he’s never seen the woman before, at which point the man goes down in a volley of gunfire. Suddenly, the camera whip pans to reveal—it’s all a movie! It’s a fun little gambit that is well staged by director Edwin L. Marin. The woman in the car turns out to be leading lady Marcia Lane (Adrienne Ames), who is sitting next to exasperated director Tom Avery (Edward Van Sloan) when a stagehand emits a terrifying scream. It turns out the actor playing the guy who got shot really did get shot—and he’s dead.

Unfortunately for Marcia, the dead guy is (was?) her ex-husband, and as any good armchair detective will tell you, the spouse is always the first suspect, especially when she’s seen in close-up right after the murder looking extremely guilty with almost comically shifty eyes. Of course there are no dearth of suspects in the film, including studio publicity chief Joseph Steiner (Bela Lugosi). It’s actually fairly clear early on that Marcia probably isn’t the culprit, given the fact it’s her new boyfriend Franklyn Drew (David Manners) who ends up doing most of the investigating, staying a good two or three steps ahead of Detective Lt. Sheehan (John Wray) and Sergeant Hilliker (Wade Boteler), the largely dunderheaded police assigned to the case.

The mystery here is good enough, even if eagle eyed viewers may be able to identify the murderer due to a few cinematic (if not actual) clues. The film veers pretty wildly from frankly stiff drama to slapstick comedy (a lot of it courtesy of the studio security guard Gulliver, portrayed by Vince Barrett). Lugosi, despite being first billed in some publicity materials (but not the film itself), is at best a sidebar here, glowering in a number of scenes as yet another red herring. None of the acting here could be charitably termed as much more than merely competent, and it's fairly easy to see why Manners and Ames never really exploded into true star territory. Still, this odd little relic is fascinating from a historical perspective, if not from any inherent quality.

The Death Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Death Kiss is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Classics with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. Lovers of Hollywood lore know the less than august end Tiffany Studios endured, and The Death Kiss, like other "poverty row" material of that era, ultimately passed into the public domain. Bargain basement home video releases have been pretty awful up to now, and the good news here is that from a relative standpoint, this Kino offering is the best I've personally seen. Unfortunately, that doesn't equate to it being really good. Sourced from 35mm elements housed at the Library of Congress, it seems apparent that there were elements of varying quality. At intermittent times, this transfer can look quite good, with excellent contrast and only a minimum of damage to report. But more consistently there are rather wide contrast and grain fluctuations and at times a somewhat frustrating amount of scratches, emulsion damage and various dirt and other anomalies to endure, as well as problems like missing frames. The original hand tinted sequences (mere moments, really) are recreated here, with yellow coloring appended to things like flashlight beams or wall sconces in the screening room. The most "spectacular" effect is a blink and you'll miss it instant where a film burns and melts in the camera (see screenshot 4). With no better elements to source a transfer from, and without the kind of market interest that would justify a frame by frame restoration, this Kino release is commendable, if far from ideal. Film purists will at least be happy to note that there's no overt digital interference here, and the elements are presented organically as they were found, warts and all.

The Death Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Death Kiss features a middling but problematic DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix that can only do so much with old, weathered and damaged stems. While dropouts here are not nearly as numerous as in previous video versions of the film I've personally seen, there are still volume fluctuations, lots of hiss and "snaps, crackles and pops". Very little actual dialogue is compromised, however, and it's relatively easy to hear all of what's going on, even in some intentionally noisy scenes.

The Death Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Richard Harlan Smith. Smith provides a laundry list of biographical and filmography data for just about everyone who wanders through this film, all in a very conversational and enjoyable manner.

The Death Kiss Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Typically my cutoff line for what I can comfortably recommend is a film earning at least a 3.0 for overall quality. But rules are meant to be broken. The Death Kiss is no great forgotten masterpiece, and in fact it would be a fairly easy argument to make that the film has certain lame elements, including some wooden acting. But this a great chance to see at least a glimpse or two of an early thirties' studio, and it's fun to see the three Dracula stars reteamed, even if this "follow up" has little of the quality of their first collaboration. While this release suffers from lackluster video and audio, the included commentary is fun and fact filled. For historical reasons if nothing else, The Death Kiss comes Recommended.