8:45 p.m.	Kiss Me Deadly Robert Aldrich (U.S., 1955)

Mickey Spillane’s greatest concoction, gumshoe Mike Hammer (played with smirking indifference by Ralph Meeker) is an Atom Age crusader, amoral, casually cruel, and nihilistically numb, except when driving his souped-up Jag or grubbing for gams. “You don’t taste like anybody I know,” says one dame upon locking lips. Set in a strictly sinister ’scape of urban L.A., the story builds as an accumulation of paranoid glimpses that fuse into a critical mass of unanswered questions. On a country drive, Hammer picks up a panicked hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman) whose hysteria is punctuated by the plaintive request, “Remember me.” Her ominous memory leads him to a small glow-in-the-dark box, sought as well by thugs led by a cynical contraband merchant (Albert Dekker). Aldrich’s cooler than Cold War style, simultaneously hip, angular, and distant, seems a precise measure of the anxiety-riddled times, whether it be fear of foe or fission. Hard-edged and savage, Kiss Me Deadly lifts the lid on fifties apocalypse.

—Steve Seid

• Written by A. I. Bezzerides, based on the novel by Mickey Spillane. Photographed by Ernest Laszlo. With Ralph Meeker, Cloris Leachman, Albert Dekker, Maxine Cooper. (105 mins, B&W, 35mm, From MGM)