• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Jun 27, 2024 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Hollywood, 1955: a nonconformist director, Stanley (Peter Coyote), auditions players for his second film. He selects an unknown actor, Stevie Blake (Blaine Novak), for the male lead opposite a second-tier starlet named Carol Redding (Victoria Tennant). Unknown to everyone on set–save the director, his overworked producer (Dan Shor), and the star herself–it is Carol’s gangster boyfriend who is footing the bill for the low-budget production, which he hopes will raise her spirits. When the director picks up on a romantic spark between his stars, though, he opts to keep this information a secret—bringing some genuine heat to their performances, but also drawing the jealous eye of their dangerous financier.

The film-within-a-film chronicled in Strangers Kiss (1983) is largely incidental next to the games being played among the people making it. It’s largely a story of egos (or lack thereof) and how they can be manipulated. While Stanley is the one running the show, he’s the one of the four central characters we come to know the least. His colleagues joke that he has no life outside of this work, but that could be the truth for all we ever know. He’s a reckless narcissist and an overbearing control freak, but it’s hard not to get swept up in his passion for the project. Coyote does impressive work conveying this drive, turning a character who offers little to like on his own into someone with whom the audience can become excited.

As Stevie Blake, Blaine Novak (also a co-writer) exudes confidence that far exceeds his character’s experience level as an actor. His co-star, Carol (Tennant) is the near-opposite: fragile, fearful, but actually far better at her craft than she accepts or realizes. (The knowledge that her boyfriend is paying for the film appears to have done more harm than good, despite his positive intentions.) Like many other movies about making movies, Strangers Kiss is full of those moments where the actors purposefully read their lines more stiffly or awkwardly when the camera is rolling to distinguish when their characters are “acting.” This is always kind of funny. Novak and Tennant are great actors, but Stevie and Carol? Not nearly as much.

The unsung hero of Strangers Kiss is the producer, Farris, played by Shor. He’s the Renfield to Stanley’s Dracula; the LeFou to his Gaston. He bears the brunt of Stanley’s abuse, but also helps facilitate it upon others. There are limits to what he’ll allow, however, and it’s only really when he breaks from this obsequious devotion to Stanley that we ever see the director’s human side. Shor’s performance is subtle and funny, and his character is the one who keeps the rest of them connected.

Until this clearly loving re-release from Fun City Editions, Strangers Kiss seems to have existed for the last several decades primarily as a footnote among devoted Stanley Kubrick fans. The film took some inspiration from the making of Kubrick’s sophomore feature, Killer’s Kiss (1955), which Strangers Kiss alludes to in many ways throughout. (Chiefly, in the characterization of Coyote’s “Stanley” as an uncompromising auteur and on-set general.) The disc includes an excellent video essay from Chris O’Neill which looks specifically at the movie’s Kubrick connections and clarifies just how little Strangers Kiss resembles that actual production. While it’s probably 90-95% fiction, it’s a neat, added wrinkle that will make the film within the film more interesting to certain viewers.

Strangers Kiss also offers a really cool glimpse inside Culver Studios during its Laird International days. The historic lot and its soundstages served as the filming site for several of the greatest films ever made, including Gone with the Wind (1939), Citizen Kane (1941), and Masters of the Universe (1987). The film spends a lot of time exploring nooks and crannies of the soundstage, lofts, loading bays, and other areas of the buildings that you really can’t appreciate in the same way just looking at behind-the-scenes photography.

FCE not only brought Strangers Kiss to Blu-ray for the first time–they loaded it up with a robust list of bonus features. Alongside the video essay mentioned before there are lengthy interviews with director Matthew Chapman, Victoria Tennant, Blaine Novak, and producer Douglas Dilg, plus a commentary by Walter Chaw. Efforts to preserve such intriguing, yet near-forgotten, features as Strangers Kiss are always worth supporting—especially when they come with hours of newly-produced featurettes, as this release does.

(www.funcityeditions.com/films/strangerskiss)