A Kiss Before Dying

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A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
Image:A Kiss Before Dying DVD cover 1956.jpg A Kiss Before Dying DVD cover
Directed by	Gerd Oswald
Written by	Ira Levin Lawrence Roman
Starring	Robert Wagner Jeffrey Hunter Virginia Leith Joanne Woodward Mary Astor
Music by	Lionel Newman
Cinematography	Lucien Ballard
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	June 12, 1956 (U.S. release)
Running time	94 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

A Kiss Before Dying is a novel by Ira Levin. The book won a 1954 Edgar Award, for Best First Novel, and it has been adapted to film twice: a 1956 version starring Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward, and a 1991 version starring Matt Dillon and Sean Young.

1 1956 film
2 Trivia
- 2.1 Main cast (1956)
3 External links
4 1991 film
- 4.1 Main cast (1991)

[edit] 1956 film

The 1956 version was color film noir directed by Gerd Oswald.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Robert Wagner plays Bud Corliss, a student who is wooing Dorothy Kingship (Joanne Woodward) purely for her father's mining fortune. When he finds she is pregnant he realizes she is quite likely to be disinherited. Bud then murders Dorothy, with it staged in a way that it appears to be a suicide. After a couple of months her sister, Ellen, finds evidence to question the suicide verdict, but by then has a new boyfriend of her own, who turns out to be Bud.

[edit] Trivia

Many of the scenes were shot at University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.
The movie was filmed in CinemaScope and Deluxe Color.
Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter were paired again in director Nicholas Ray's The True Story of Jesse James.
Director Oswald worked mainly in TV directing episodes of Star Trek and The Outer Limits. Oswald later directed another film noir, the cult film The Screaming Mimi, in 1958.
The film was remade in India as 1994's Baazigar.