Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)

Director:

Norman Foster

Writers:

Leonardo Bercovici (writer)
Walter Bernstein (adaptation)

Release Date:

30 October 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

A HUNTED MAN...A LOVE-HAUNTED WOMAN! (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

Fugitive Bill Saunders and lonely nurse Jane Wharton are crossed by fate when he hides out in her apartment.

Plot Keywords:

Nurse | Fugitive | Bartender | Black Market | Criminal

Cast

Joan Fontaine	...	Jane Wharton
Burt Lancaster	...	William Earle 'Bill' Saunders
Robert Newton	...	Harry Carter
Lewis L. Russell	...	Tom Widgery
Aminta Dyne	...	Landlady
Grizelda Harvey	...	Mrs. Paton
Jay Novello	...	Sea Captain of Pelicano
Colin Keith-Johnston	...	Judge
Reginald Sheffield	...	Superintendent
Campbell Copelin	...	Publican
Leyland Hodgson	...	Tipster
Peter Forbes	...	Young Father

Also Known As:

Blood on My Hands (UK)
The Unafraid (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:16 (nf) | Norway:16 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Norma Productions

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Watching the Detectives (2007)

KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS (Norman Foster, 1948) **1/2

Burt Lancaster's seventh film (and sixth noir!) 'relocates' him to London where he is an ill-tempered Canadian seaman and former WWII P.O.W. who accidentally kills the bartender of a pub for curtailing his boozing at closing time; a fellow patron (played with customary hamminess by the one and only Robert Newton) witnesses the event and plagues Lancaster throughout the picture to act as 'inside man' in a pharmaceutical robbery. This turn of events comes about through Lancaster's improbable relationship with a besotted nurse (Joan Fontaine) in whose flat he first takes refuge. Despite an evocative title, appropriately moody camera-work and musical accompaniment (courtesy of Russell Metty and Miklos Rozsa) and even a couple of Wellesian directorial touches (read tilted camera angles) thrown in for good measure by Norman Foster – whose best-known credit remains JOURNEY INTO FEAR (1943) – the film faces an insurmountable hurdle in the unconvincing central romance that culminates in an exceedingly phony redemptive ending. More's the pity, therefore, that this finale had just been preceded by the film's best sequences which depict Newton's double-death at the separate hands of first Fontaine and later Lancaster!