1953
Davy Gordon (Jamie Smith) is a boxer at the end of his career. One evening after losing a fight, he runs to the aid of his neighbour, Gloria (Irene Kane), hostess in a dance hall. The two young people get on well and eventually fall in love. Gloria decides to quit her job to flee her condition and her boss (Frank Silvera). The latter, also in love with her, tries to eliminate Davy to win her back. The two men face off in a warehouse of shop-window dummies.
Killer's Kiss, the first work officially authorised by Kubrick, is a film noir. It was released in the United States on 1 October 1955 and in France on 13 June 1962. Made with a very limited budget (Morris Bousel, a relative of Kubrick's and pharmacist in the Bronx, advanced $40,000 to the filmmaker and was credited as producer), the film was a serious financial setback for Kubrick. However, it enabled him to gain experience by doing the shooting, editing, script (co-written with Howard O. Sackler) and post-sync.
The lack of authorisation to film on the public highway and in public places obliged Kubrick to shoot as quickly as possible in the streets of New York. Owing to this constraint, along with the use of real settings, the work had a kinship with the new aesthetic that emerged in the film noir at the end of the 1940s in the United States, influenced by Italian neo-realism.
The film was well received when released, but a few years later, Kubrick deemed it amateur work, like his first realisation.