"They were fun days, and we set the town on fire with every movie we did." ~ Burt Lancaster

The fast rising star that was Burt Lancaster formed a production company with his agent Harold Hecht and as part of a deal for Lancaster to start in Universal’s adaptation of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, the studio would back Norma Productions (named after Lancaster’s wife) film Kiss The Blood Off My Hands. Robert Siodmak was originally signed on to direct, having handled Lancaster’s brilliant debut, The Killers, but journeyman Norman Foster sat in the chair and delivered a great Film Noir with Joan Fontaine and Robert Newton at the top of their game in a first rate cast.

Bill Saunders (Burt Lancaster) loses his cool and hits a barman who’d called last drinks, only to see him fall and hit his head. Another patron, Harry (Robert Newton) examines the victim and inform Bill that he’s killed him, at which point Bill runs. Pursued by a mob and then by police he hides in the boarding room of Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine) and waits out the night with her as his prisoner. She doesn’t call police when she goes off to work and he becomes infatuated with her, returning the next day. The pair circle around each other as more trouble comes Bill’s way and a short prison stint sees him mend his ways and he takes a job with the institution she works for as they repair the relationship. All is going well until Harry reenters the picture with a proposition for Bill.

Kiss The Blood Off My Hands is a prime example of the Hollywood Studio system working like a well oiled machine. The three excellent stars are supported at every level by capable technicians working with a script honed by talented writers. The source novel was a hit in 1940 from English author Gerard Butler, something of an English James M. Cain and the screenplay was worked on by Walter Bernstein and Ben Maddow, both soon to be victims of the Hollywood Blacklist. The marvelous cinematography was by Universal house lensman Russell Metty (after Gregg Toland had done two weeks work) and the brilliant score was by Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa who had already scored two Lancaster hits, The Killers and Brute Force. Actor-turned-director Norman Foster had an uneven career until then, mostly known for the Mr. Moto series with Peter Lorre, but he’d also worked with Orson Welles on the unfinished film It's All True, directing a segment and directing the Welles project Journey Into Fear, starring Joseph Cotton. Robert Siodmak did some uncredited pick up filming after the main filming was complete.

The film achieves a fine balance in the two leads – Burt Lancaster is full of fire and spite as the damaged man on the run and Joan Fontaine is the perfect foil as the lonely nurse’s aide he becomes infatuated with. The leftist writers even manage to allude to what modern audiences would identify as PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – where Bill has the anxiety caused by two years in a Nazi prisoner of war camp – he tells Jane after witnessing chimps in a cage and having a panic attack, ‘I don’t like things caged. You should see what happens to men in a cage.’ Jane also has her scars from the war, which killed her sweetheart. Fontaine is luminous as jane and strikes the right mix of uncertainty, warmth, empathy and care but always with a dose of reality. Lancaster’s Bill is a drowning man trying to come up for air, reaching for the lifeline he sees in Jane, but often losing his grip.

Foster does a fine job in keeping the performance dynamics in focus and let the actors shine. Lancaster had burst onto the scene a mere two years before and was making the most of his sudden stardom and playing to his image as an intense, virile and moody character, perfect for Film Noir. He plays the range as the lost, ex-soldier Bill, from troubled and damaged to lovestruck and hopeful and does it convincingly. He is aided by a note perfect performance from Fontaine, playing a specialty from her repertoire, a mild girl character with a good heart but here she also shows grit and spine when needed in confronting Bill’s ugly behaviour. The pair have great chemistry which seemed unlikely on paper – Fontaine was newly pregnant during filming which disrupted the schedule but she’s one of the films great assets and a reminder of a talent that had already won an Academy Award. As is Robert Newton, snapped up while visiting Hollywood from England – his, oily and untrustworthy Harry, a black-market operator and blackmailer is delightfully rendered in a roguish, cockney accent that belied the darkness and danger at the heart of the leery charmer.

The film is a classic Hollywood confection in superb sets that ooze the atmosphere of the tight London streets and cramped rooms and pubs that you’d believe it was shot on location instead of Universal backlots and soundstages. Eagle eyed viewers will note the truck Bill drives is a left-hand drive, not the British right hand drive. Oscar winning set designer Nathan Juran created the stunning sets and Foster shows them to maximum effect. Russell Metty was a versatile near 20 year veteran who’d had some great success with Film Noir, having recently shot The Stranger for Orson Welles, Ride The Pink Horse for Robert Montgomery and Ivy for Sam Wood, starring Fontaine. He’d also shot All My Sons, impressing Lancaster who signed him up to capture the dark tones and tensions of Kiss The Blood Of My Hands.

In the starburst fallout of Burt Lancaster’s meteoric rise and the subsequent fuss made of his best early films like The Killers, Brute Force, Criss Cross and Rope of Sand, a gleaming little bauble like this one got unfairly overlooked – no hard edged dame for Lancaster to bounce against, just the lovely Joan, and no storied director like Jules Dassin or Robert Siodmak to underpin the film’s reputation. More’s the pity. Kiss The Blood Off My Hands is a fine Film Noir entry and features two movie stars you can’t take your eyes off giving it everything. What’s not to like?