A Kiss Before Dying

Based on Ira Levin’s (admittedly superior) novel, A Kiss Before Dying follows Robert Wagner’s sociopathic Bud Corliss as he worms his way into the lives of a wealthy industrialist and his two daughters. Filmmaker Gerd Oswald, working from Lawrence Roman’s script, delivers an erratically-paced yet mostly watchable thriller that benefits substantially from Wagner’s often electrifying performance, as the actor steps into the shoes of his charmingly psychotic character to a degree that is, for the most part, nothing short of spellbinding – with Wagner’s top-notch work certainly matched by a talented supporting cast that includes Jeffrey Hunter and Joanne Woodward. And although Oswald has undoubtedly peppered the proceedings with a handful of gripping sequences (eg Bud’s rooftop encounter with Woodward’s doomed Dorothy), A Kiss Before Dying progresses at a curiously deliberate gait that ultimately does ensure that, as a whole, the film isn’t quite able to come off as the consistently tense exercise in suspense one might’ve anticipated – which does, when coupled with a satisfying (yet far-from-engrossing) climax, cement the picture’s place as a decent-enough adaptation that could (and should) have been so much better.

**1/2 out of ****