Kiss of Death

Kiss of Death (1947) is an American noir directed by Henry Hathaway — watch online on iFILM. On Christmas Eve, ex-convict Nick Bianco — Victor Mature — makes one last score: a jewellery heist on an upper floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. A bullet stops him on the way out.

In the precinct, assistant DA Louis D'Angelo — Brian Donlevy — offers Nick a deal: give up his partners and walk. Nick refuses, trusting the criminal code to look after his family while he does time. That trust is misplaced. Circumstances eventually force him to talk, and talking puts him in the crosshairs of Tommy Udo, a grinning, unpredictable killer played by Richard Widmark in a debut performance that shocked audiences in 1947. Karl Malden appears in a small but sharp supporting role.

Hathaway shot much of the film on actual New York streets, giving it a raw, semi-documentary texture that set it apart from studio-bound crime pictures of the era. Kiss of Death holds up as a precise study of loyalty, betrayal, and the cost of surviving by other people's rules. Stream Kiss of Death (1947) online on iFILM.