Aldrich melted down the B detective thriller into a vision of Armageddon: Kiss Me Deadly was years ahead of its time in being so very audaciously about its time. And place. From the opening sequence-a desperate ride through nowhere shot in glistening blacks and not much white-Aldrich and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo evoke a world that is not quite recognizable, yet is frighteningly familiar. It is Los Angeles. Tackiness here is palpable, from the shabby-sturdy streets of Bunker Hill to the more vulnerable Laurel Canyon; and forget Malibu, it's gone, man. The sincerely deadpan acting of Ralph Meeker as Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer offers a nihilistic antihero whose mediocrity is well met by the company he keeps. (The one sensitive character in the film is institutionalized.) In a plot played out in paranoid glances and unanswered questions, at once comic-book naive and amazingly cynical, the search is not for jewels or statuettes or even drugs, but for a lead-lined box containing a small atomic bomb. Mere greed is a thing of the past. Welcome to Alphaville.