Object #31 - Mannequins - Killer's Kiss (1955)

Dir. Stanley Kubrick

Killer's Kiss is a fascinating little film, literally, it has a brief 67 minute run time, not much longer than a modern episode of TV. It's fascinating for being the second feature film of the cinematic virtuoso and legend, Stanley Kubrick, director of such masterpieces as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Killer's Kiss however is the product of a younger, 26 year-old Kubrick, and his technique hadn't been refined to its eventual peak. Kubrick himself shunned his first feature, Fear and Desire, for it's amateur nature later in his life. Killer's Kiss is only once removed from that, and it isn't until his third feature, the superb heist film that is The Killing does Kubrick begin as a true filmmaker. But that's what makes his early work so fascinating, to see the rough edges of a future master!

As you'd expect there are flairs of brilliance. In Killer's Kiss, it's mostly the cinematography of the piece. Kubrick, a renowned photographer, particularly due to his age, knew how to shoot New York in such a way as to capture the essence of the place. 

[ASIDE: I've often wondered if you watched every single film set in a big city whether you could truly know the city. The same with massive world events such as World War 2. Take the duality of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, both envisioned by Eastwood to explore this idea. If we compared Saving Private Ryan, a modern Hollywood take on the war, to the older, slightly hokey John Wayne films like Sands of Iwo Jima, we'd call Saving Private Ryan the more realistic. But neither are, both are hyper-real in their own ways. And more to the point, the beauty of films like Sands of Iwo Jima is the way the American filmmakers (and indeed British, and other Allied countries) portrayed the war a short ten or twenty years after. Even more to the point, if we analysed Birdman, Killer's Kiss, Manhattan, and Kubrick's later staged version of New York in Eyes Wide Shut, which is the closest to the real New York? Of course, the answer is, all are valid, even films merely passingly set there, like The Avengers, tell us something about how the city is considered in the popular psyche, and indeed the director's. I may write a separate post about this in future, as frankly, I think it's fascinating.]

It's unfortunate then that in his final film Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick made New York feel so unnatural by using sets. This choice was made out of necessity, as he hated flying and was now permanently living in Britain. Also, famous perfectionist that he was, I believe Kubrick preferred the use of sets as he could control every aspect of it. In Killer's Kiss, due to budgetary reasons, the film was set on location, and so New York is real, but it's in how Kubrick chooses to frame it that makes it interesting. 

In typical ObjectsInFilm fashion, I've gone and spoken a lot about something I don't want to really talk about! My point was that Killer's Kiss has some, not many, but some aspects that reflect his later, more refined, and well-received work. Also, that it's beautifully shot, and should be watched on that merit alone. The scene I wanted to discuss comes near the end of the film, it's the climatic fight between Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith), our main character, a lightweight boxer who wants to run away with Gloria Price (Irene Kane), and Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera), the gangster employer of Gloria, who has kidnapped her. It's a simple premise, if Davey kills Vincent he can run away with Gloria, but if Vincent wins, he will likely escape the police with Gloria in tow. You can watch the fight here.

The two fight in a mannequin factory, with various mannequin models scattered in various states of disarray around the factory floor. The mannequins achieve a few things in the scene, the most obvious and physical is being used as props, as fighting implements between the two before they find deadlier weapons. More interestingly, is the subtext that the use of mannequins have. You can see from the screenshots that the mannequins are almost always in shot during the fight. Their lifeless faces look on, disinterested in the fight. What I feel this reflects is the sense that the affair that is being fought over, Gloria, is a dime-a-dozen in New York. The 'crowd', unlike the crowd of the earlier boxing match, have no investment in the outcome of the fight, as they, like the inhabitants of New York, are merely background figures in the game being fought.

 This is true of any film set in a city, the denizens are normally passers-by, each with their own stories but none that factor into the plot of the films we are watching. By having the mannequins in the background of the scene, Kubrick is reminding us of the setting of the film, and the world at large, and how little each effect the relationships at play. New York won't care who wins the fight, as Davey, Vincent, or Gloria don't care about any of the citizens of New York outside their respective social circles. By casting unknown actors as Davey and Gloria, this feeling is heightened, as the actors are as unfamiliar to us as the characters they are playing, and so there is no baggage to disconnect.  

The other aspect, and I think the most salient and obvious, is the fact that nearly all of the mannequins are female. As the two men fight, they use women figures as weapons, destroying their opponent bit by bit, but also the women-figures in the process. It isn't men who suffer in the game of love and lust, but women. They are used as objects here, just as they are objectified in 1950's New York, as the end-goal of men, both romantically, as shown by Davey, and sexually, as shown by Vincent. Gloria is a woman, with her opinion of little value in the matter. I watched the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice lately, and the same themes arise there, and what makes it such an interesting and enduring novel (and ergo the adaptions) is the fact that Elizabeth Bennet does have agency and choice, despite the time the novel is set. In Killer's Kiss however, New York is portrayed as a place to be gotten out of by Davey and Gloria, so that their love can bloom free. New York, civilization, is where the women are objectified, showing us as modern audiences (and let's not take the high horse here, we have a LONG way to go before portraying women realistically in film generally) how backwards the 1950's was, despite the fact that New York, a bastion of old-age modernity had been chugging along for many a decade. 

My final point is a superficial one, but just one I thought should be noted. The use of mannequins in Killer's Kiss seems like a pre-cursor to the most obvious use of an object in Kubrick's filmography, in my opinion, the penis sculpture from A Clockwork Orange, one I may eventually write a post about in future. It shows us that Kubrick understood how objects could be used as symbols of deeper themes. The most interesting thing, I think, is that they are normally quite obvious and overt. The use of female mannequins as weapons would seems quite amateur of Kubrick if he didn't go on to use just as obvious a symbolic object, the penis sculpture in A Clockwork Orange. Let's not beat around the bush here, Kubrick wasn't above a cheap gag when using objects, as some certain genital-shaped lollipops can attest...