Kiss of Death

Victor Mature stars as an ex-con who can't catch a break and winds up back in stir. He's a stand-up guy who eventually turns informant during his prison term in an attempt to rebuild his family. The script, by masters of the form Hecht and Lederer, sets up a situation where we can't help but feel for this guy, and Mature gives an unexpectedly emotional performance—he really breaks your heart. But the picture is most notable as the first feature of Richard Widmark, who plays perhaps the nastiest and most vicious psychopath in a career that would be filled with memorable nasty, vicious psychopaths. It's one hell of a screen debut. Director Henry Hathaway paces the film less like a thriller that ratchets up the tension as the walls close in on the hero, and more like a tragic melodrama where the protagonist is occasionally allowed to glimpse a happy ending but is too smart not to resign himself to his fate.