Robert Aldrich melts down the 'B' detective thriller into a vision of Armageddon: in 1955, Kiss Me Deadly was years ahead of its time in being so very audaciously about its time. The tackiness here is almost palpable, abetted by the sincerely deadpan acting of Ralph Meeker as Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, a nihilistic anti-hero whose mediocrity is well met by the company he keeps. The plot is played out in paranoid glances and unanswered questions; at once naive and amazingly cynical, it involves a search, 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.