Strangers Kiss

Interesting if somewhat uneasy and unsuccessful behind-the-scenes Hollywood drama set in 1955. Taking its cue from Stanley Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss" (also made in 1955), a new director and his young producer get funding from a Los Angeles mobster to shoot their film script on a soundstage in Culver City. The mobster's girlfriend is also cast in the lead, but art begins to mirror real-life when the girl and her male lead, a romantic-minded newcomer playing a boxer, begin to have feelings for each other. Directed by Matthew Chapman and written by Chapman and co-star Blaine Novak, "Strangers Kiss" has undercurrents of menace; perhaps Novak's experience working on Peter Bogdanovich's "They All Laughed" with Sean Ferrer--who is this film's associate producer--gave the filmmakers some insight into forbidden love on a movie-set (Bogdanovich having fallen for the ill-fated Dorothy Stratten during the making of "Laughed"). This is a handsome low-budget effort from Orion Classics, and Peter Coyote is really something as the intense director of the film-within-the-film, but Novak and Victoria Tennant are too modern to be convincing in this milieu. However, the two do share the movie's best sequence--the awkward-funny shooting of a kissing scene--and the predictably sad feelings at the finish are well-conveyed. ** from ****

This is the fictional telling of the making of Killer's Kiss, Stanley Kubrick's second full-length film. The director is only called Stanley throughout due, I am assuming, to avoid any sort of legal action from the actual Stanley Kubrick. I caught this on cable TV and liked it very much. I have a soft spot for films about filmmaking and the little (and not so little) dramas that go on behind the scenes, especially when they are working under very tight budgetary limits and a tight time schedule. I don't know how much research went into the film or how accurate it was to the events of the real film. Peter Coyote gives a superbly bombastic performance as Stanley and Victoria Tenant is charming as the leading lady. I haven't seen it well over thirty-five years but my memories are very positive. It needs to be rediscovered. It's the kind of offbeat kind of film that the Criterion Collection like to unearth and offer to a modern audience. I think.it's worthy of such a destinction.

I have not seen the movie. but i recorded the credits music off the tv of gato barbieri. i think they were trying to copy last tango. barbieri created two really nice songs check them out.

Its odd why the filmmakers chose, out of all movies, Stanley Kubrick's little known second feature film, "Killer's Kiss", as the basis for this fascinating inside look into the making of a small budget movie, but I'm glad they did, because I'm a big Kubrick admirer, and this is a must for all Kubrick fans.

The movie goes inside the making of the film, but it also features a parallel love story of the lead actors and the lead actress' jealous boyfriend, just like in Kubrick's film.

The ending is a classic one too. In true Kubrick form, the movie ends on a sad, yet interesting note, a total 180 of the film its based on. Also, it ends with the Kubrick-like director character pitching his next movie idea, about a group of people trying to pull off a heist in a casino (as opposed to a racetrack like in Kubrick's classic follow-up, "The Killing").

I loved this movie! Not only was it a fascinating insight into the making of a film, but it was also about what Kubrick was like in his early filmmaking days.

I first viewed this movie over 15-years ago. I remember hearing then; that the story, about the making of a low budget movie, was based on Stanley Kubrick's effort to make the movie "Killer's Kiss" (1955). That movie starred Irene Kane and Jamie Smith; and was produced by both Stanley Kubrick and Morris Bousel. Watch both motion pictures and see what you think.