Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

[Count_Lippe]

It is said that one of the inspirations Ian Fleming had when he wrote his books was Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled Mike Hammer novels.

A few films were also made of Spillane's books and Kiss Me Deadly from 1955 is probably the best and most well known of these.

In the film a mysterious suitcase plays a key part, everybody is after it and the contents of the case is not revealed until the end.

In the suitcase there is some radionuclide material which explodes at the film's end. On the film's wikipedia page it says:

The original novel, while providing much of the plot, is about a mafia conspiracy and does not feature espionage and the nuclear suitcase.

"The great whatsit," as Velda calls it, at the center of Hammer's quest is a small, mysterious valise that is hot to the touch and contains a dangerous, glowing substance. It comes to represent the 1950s Cold War fear and nuclear weapon paranoia about the atomic bomb that permeated American culture.

I suspect this end scene possibly had some influence on the nuclear reactor explosion in Dr No (1962).

To sum it up, both Mickey Spillane's books and the film Kiss Me Deadly probably had some influence on James Bond, and I think it's interesting to find little traces of such material here and there.

Here are the end scenes of the film Kiss Me Deadly, rather cool scene with lots of strange sci-fi sounds.

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[Blowfeld]

Interesting. I'll have to watch it with a careful eye.