Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Screenplay by
Based onKiss the Blood Off My Hands
by Gerald Butler
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyRussell Metty
Edited byMilton Carruth
Music byMiklós Rózsa
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal-International Pictures
Release date
  • October 29, 1948 (1948-10-29) (United States)[2]
Running time
79 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million[1]
Box office$1.6 million (US 1948 rentals)[3]

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands is a 1948 American noir-thriller film directed by Norman Foster. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Gerald Butler, it stars Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, and Robert Newton.[4][5] The film faced minor opposition from fundamentalist groups in the United States and the Commonwealth, with regard to its gory title. In some markets, the film was released under the alternate titles The Unafraid (in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and smaller towns in the United States) or Blood on My Hands (in the United Kingdom).[6][7][8][9]

The film was the first production by Lancaster and his agent Harold Hecht's new film production company, Norma Productions (co-produced through Harold Hecht Productions). Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was financed and distributed through a one-picture deal with Universal-International Pictures, in exchange for Lancaster appearing in the studio's production of All My Sons.[10] The film was set in London, England but was shot almost entirely at Universal-International Pictures' Sound Stage 21 from March to May 1948.[11][1] Some exterior scenes were shot on location at Los Angeles' Griffith Park Zoo and the Hollywood Park Racetrack.[12]

The movie premiered on Friday, October 29, 1948, at Loew's Criterion Theater in New York City,[2] and opened to over three hundred theaters in the United States starting on October 30 and through November 1948.[13][14] In promotion of the film, Lancaster embarked on a tour performing a trapeze and acrobatic vaudeville act with his partner Nick Cravat.[14][15] Some of the pair's stunts would be recreated and filmed for Norma Productions' next picture, the swashbuckler The Flame and the Arrow.[16]

  1. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference :13 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference :14 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Top Grossers of 1948", Variety 5 January 1949 p 46
  4. ^ Back cover of Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Rinehart Publishing, 1946
  5. ^ "Book cover of Mad with Much Heart, Jarrolds, first publishing". Archived from the original on June 22, 2018. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  6. ^ "Picture of the Month: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands", Modern Screen December 1948 p57
  7. ^ "Mitchum Too Thin for Film He Started Before Jail", The Evening Independent March 18 1949 p10
  8. ^ The Ottawa Evening Citizen Wednesday, November 2nd, 1949 p27
  9. ^ The Sydney Morning Herald Monday, June 13, 1949, p8
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :12 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Kiss the Blood Off My Hands at IMDb.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :15 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference :17 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference :18 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference :19 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).