| Kiss the Blood Off My Hands | |
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Lobby card |
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| Directed by | Norman Foster |
| Produced by | Richard Vernon |
| Written by | Story: Gerald Butler Screenplay: Leonardo Bercovici Walter Bernstein |
| Starring | Joan Fontaine Burt Lancaster Robert Newton |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | Russell Metty |
| Editing by | Milton Carruth |
| Distributed by | Universal International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 30, 1948 (U.S.A.) |
| Running time | 79 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands is a 1948 film noir, directed by Norman Foster. It stars Burt Lancaster, Joan Fontaine and Robert Newton.[1]
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Bill Saunders (Lancaster) is a former prisoner of war now living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent. He gets into a bar fight in which he in kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine), who believes his story that the killing was an accident.
Saunders is involved in another fight -- this time with a police officer. He ends up behind bars, but Jane, who is now in love with Saunders, gets him a job driving a truck delivering drugs for her medical clinic when he's released.
Meanwhile, hoodlum Harry Carter, who witnessed the earlier bar fight, threatens to expose Saunders to the police. In return for his silence, Carter demands that Saunders cooperate with a planned robbery of his next drug shipment.
When Saunders does do the delivery, Jane rides with him, forcing Saunders to make the delivery as planned to avoid getting Jane involved in the possibly dangerous theft. This betrayal of Carter puts the lives of Saunders and Jane in even greater danger.
When the film was released The New York Times appreciated the direction but was tough on Burt Lancaster, writing, "Norman Foster has directed Kiss the Blood Off My Hands with keen appreciation for the story's emotional content and he has handled the scenes of violence with striking sharpness. The long chase that starts the film on its way, with Lancaster desperately racing through winding streets and alleyways of the London waterfront, vaulting fences and scrambling up on roofs, is high-tension excitement. Mr. Lancaster's performance is good, but he would do well to drop some of his tenseness and get more flexibility into his acting. Robert Newton, as a cockney schemer who witnessed the killing and attempts to blackmail Saunders, is somewhat flamboyant but still he gets over an effective characterization."[2]