Based on the novel by Ira Levin and directed by Gerd Oswald in 1955, A Kiss Before Dying might, by today's standards at least, seem to be a little bit on the predictable side but considering when it was made and who it was made with, it's a surprisingly nasty little thriller. It also features some pretty solid performances from most of the principals.

The story follows a Korean War veteran named Bud Corliss (Robert Wagner) who is back on American soil and attending college thanks to the G.I. Bill. Bud is bound and determined to become a wealthy man and he sees his beautiful but unwitting girlfriend, Dorothy (Joanne Woodward), as his meal ticket. Her father, Leo Kingship (George Macready), runs a successful mining company and as such he is a pretty wealthy man. Dorothy stands to come into a pretty hefty inheritance, which should pretty much assure Bud a shot at the good life… until it comes to light that Dorothy is pregnant. When Leo finds out about this, he threatens to cut her out of the will.

With his shot at her inheritance now on very shaky ground, Bud murders Dorothy but stages it in such a way, sending her off the roof of a tall building, as to make it appear that she took her own life. With Dorothy out of the way, he moves forward with the next phase of his plan, which just so happens to involve Dorothy's sister, Ellen (Virginia Leith)…

A Kiss Before Dying benefits immensely from the presence of a talented cast. Joanne Woodward might not be in the film for all that long but she's very good in this very early part for her and she looks amazing. When she finds out she's pregnant the understandable confusion she feels is relayed to the audience very effectively thanks to her work in front of the camera. We feel for her. George Macready as her father also delivers a performance that makes good use of his strong screen presence. Virginia Leith (who will forever live in infamy for her work in The Brain That Wouldn't Die!) is excellent, playing her part with the right mix of charm and mysterious intent and in doing so, crafting a pretty memorable character in the process. The film also features notable supporting performances from Robert Quarry and Mary Astor as Wagner's innocent mother, all of whom do fine work. ,Jeffrey Hunter plays the detective working the case, but unfortunately he's a bit of a weak link, he never really grabs us. It's the young Robert Wagner who really stands out, however. He's charming, handsome and oh so devious. The character is well written and Wagner seems to know exactly what to do in the part. The scenes between he and his mother are interesting, as we see here how his manipulative tendencies extend far beyond just his dealings with women his own age but have, in fact, very likely been there since an early age. Their relationship is a strange one to be sure, but seeing Wagner and Astor interact together in front of the camera, well, it's great stuff.

It's not all-together too difficult to figure out how it's going to end, but getting there is enjoyable enough. The movie is very nicely shot and the cinematography from Lucien Ballard often times comes up with some pretty striking compositions. There are definitely noirish elements at play here and director Gerd Oswald, a German born filmmaker who was prolific in the TV industry of the fifties and sixties but who also directed the memorable Crime Of Passion, keeps the pace moving nicely. Throw in an effective jazz tinged instrumental score courtesy of composer Nelson Riddle and this one shapes up quite nicely. It's not a perfect film but it is a very good one and as such, it's definitely worth seeing, particularly for fans of fifties era thrillers and suspense pictures.

Video:

A Kiss Before Dying is presented in a nice looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.35.1 widescreen. This is a nice improvement over the previous standard definition presentation of the film that was released on DVD by MGM back in 2002. Color reproduction looks very solid here and black levels stay strong. Detail and texture show a lot more than we've seen previously on home video and there's good depth to the image as well. Some minor print damage shows up here and there, a few small scratches and some specks, but overall the image is pretty clean. There are no signs of edge enhancement, noise reduction or compression artifacts to complain about and the upgrade in picture quality this release offers is considerable.