1955’s ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ Marked the Movie Debut of the Now-Iconic Corvette

The Corvette has played a role in many pop culture moments over the last seven decades, but it all started with 1955’s Kiss Me Deadly.

Having become an important piece of American history over the past seven decades, the Corvette has also enjoyed its fair share of time on both the small and big screens, appearing in more TV shows and movies than most could probably count, from Star Trek to Animal House and everything in between. However, like everything else in life, there had to be a beginning, and in the case of the Corvette’s movie career, it all started with a film called Kiss Me Deadly, as The Hollywood Reporter recently reflected on.

Kiss Me Deadly – a 1955 American film noir produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starred Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, Wesley Addy, Maxine Cooper, and Cloris Leachman – and is based on the 1952 Mickey Spillane novel of the same name, though it was quite a bit different than the text that inspired it. It all centers around a private investigator named Mike Hammer, who is looking into a mysterious case surrounding the death of a woman in Los Angeles, all while cruising around Los Angeles in his Corvette.

The mafia plays a pretty critical role in the film, and it’s even the source of the C1 Corvette itself, as the black sports car is gifted to Hammer by the criminal organization – though there’s obviously a bit of a twist. Hammer discovers that there are a pair of bombs loaded in the car, which he manages to dispose of before he spends a considerable amount of screen time behind the wheel. Along the way, we’re treated to a number of notable sights, including an iconic one depicting the Corvette passing underneath the Angels Flight runway in Bunker Hill.

As for the film itself, well, reviews were mostly positive, with some critics praising it for being a suitable metaphor for the paranoia and fear of nuclear war that emerged following the Cold War. Fast forward several decades, however, and now it’s a bit more notable for the fact that it marked the Corvette’s movie debut rather than masterfully capturing the nation’s mood at that period in time.

Photos:Everette Collection

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