The film noir villain who became a role model for… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

The film noir vil­lain who became a role mod­el for real-life gangsters

18 Jul 2016

Words by David Hayles

Black and white image showing a man in prison bars, with two other men seated in front of him.
Black and white image showing a man in prison bars, with two other men seated in front of him.
In 1947’s Kiss of Death, Richard Wid­mark plays a mur­der­ous Jok­er-styled sociopath.

For a nick­el I’d grab him, stick both thumbs right in his eyes, hang on til he drops dead.” So says psy­chot­ic vil­lain Tom­my Udo (Richard Wid­mark) about a prison guard at the begin­ning of Hen­ry Hathaway’s 1947 film noir Kiss of Death. By any mea­sure, this was a sen­sa­tion­al debut: Wid­mark, at the age of 33, burst onto the scene in a rea­son­ably small role that threat­ened to over­shad­ow Vic­tor Mature as the good guy, and led to the film being pro­mot­ed on the back of Widmark’s irre­deemably unpleas­ant killer.

Mature is an ex-con try­ing to go straight, coerced into tes­ti­fy­ing against Udo, who doesn’t take kind­ly to squeal­ers”. In the film’s most infa­mous scene, Udo ties an old woman to her wheel­chair and cack­les man­i­cal­ly as he push­es her down a flight of stairs. Widmark’s per­for­mance was so pop­u­lar, that in the same way Gor­don Gecko became a cult hero fig­ure of the real-life Wall Street, actu­al gang­sters start­ed to mod­el them­selves on Tom­my Udo. The film was remade in 1997 with Nico­las Cage in the Udo role, in a crude and ill-mea­sured per­for­mance that makes Widmark’s leer­ing, lunatic debut seem like a mas­ter­class in restraint.

Wid­mark tack­led the part with rel­ish, his lip curl­ing inflec­tion and sneer­ing, the­atri­cal laugh recall­ing British thes­pi­an Tod Slaugh­ter, who hap­pi­ly played a string of wretched bad­dies in the 30s and 40s, includ­ing Sweeney Todd in The Demon Bar­ber of Fleet Street. He based his per­for­mance on the Jok­er from the Bat­man comics (a char­ac­ter itself inspired by Ger­man actor Con­rad Veidt’s grue­some grin in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs).

Things came full cir­cle in 2008, when Heath Ledger appeared to chan­nel Widmark’s glee­ful, cack­ling vil­lain into his Oscar-win­ning turn in The Dark Knight. Both Ledger’s sadis­tic Jok­er and Udo rel­ish extract­ing as much pain from their vic­tims as pos­si­ble, and crow about the fact repeat­ed­ly. Con­sid­er this line from The Dark Knight: Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can’t savour all the… lit­tle emo­tions.” Now Udo in Kiss of Death: You know what I do to squeal­ers? I let em have it right I the bel­ly. So they can roll around for a long time thinkin’ it over.”

Wid­mark was nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar, and won the Gold­en Globe for most promis­ing new­com­er in 1948. He fol­lowed up Kiss of Death with The Street With No Name, play­ing an equal­ly unpleas­ant char­ac­ter, mob boss Alec Stiles, and in 1950 he added two more bad guys to his CV: in 1950’s No Way Out, he plays patho­log­i­cal racist Ray Bid­dle oppo­site Sid­ney Poiti­er as an ide­al­is­tic doc­tor; and in Jules Dassin’s superb Night and the City, released the same year, Wid­mark excelled as Amer­i­can con man Har­ry Fabi­an, who you can’t help but root for in spite of his com­pul­sive larceny.

These were brave choic­es for a new star being groomed for Hol­ly­wood lead­ing man star­dom – char­ac­ters who, to quote the mould-break­ing Udo, wouldn’t give you the skin off a grape”. As Udo, Wid­mark appeared to be say­ing why not have some fun with this part?’ Or, in the words of the Jok­er, why so serious?’

Kiss of Death is released on DVD/Blu-ray on 25 July cour­tesy of Sig­nal One Entertainment.

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