Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Norman Foster
Joan Fontaine
Burt Lancaster
Robert Newton
Lewis L. Russell
Aminta Dyne
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In London, Canadian war veteran Bill Saunders, whose two years in a German labor camp have left him prone to explosive fits of violence, accidentally kills a man in a pub. The crime is witnessed by black markeeter Harry Carter. Fleeing the police, Bill climbs through the open window of the apartment of medical assistant Jane Wharton. Jane promises not to report Bill's break-in if he allows her to go to work and leaves her apartment. Bill agrees and later in the street robs a man's wallet and buys new clothes, then waits for Jane outside the clinic. He follows her to a zoo and she grudgingly befriends him, agreeing to spend the afternoon with him at the racetrack. While betting on the races, Bill runs into Harry, who threatens blackmail. On the train returning to the city, Bill gets involved with a cardsharp and beats him up when the man refuses to continue playing. Bill and Jane jump the train and Jane is outraged at his violent behavior and leaves him. When a policeman questions him, Bill strikes him and is promptly arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment and eighteen lashes for brutality. Upon his release, Bill runs into Harry, who suggests they become partners for a major heist, but Bill is evasive. Instead, he visits Jane, who had tried unsuccessfully to visit him in prison. She offers to get him a job as a supplies driver for the clinic and he gratefully accepts. Bill settles contentedly into his job, but Harry tracks him down and demands that he help him steal the clinic's penicillin to sell on the black market. Bill agrees on the condition that this is the only illegal job in which he will participate. On the night of the planned theft, Jane unexpectedly asks to ride along with Bill. When Bill tries to call off the heist, Harry refuses and Bill beats him up. He continues the normal delivery with Jane, taking the drugs to the homes of several sick children. The next night Bill searches for Harry, who goes to Jane's apartment to expose Bill. When Harry attempts to assault Jane, she stabs him with a pair of scissors, then flees to Bill's room. He returns to her apartment and discovers Harry still alive and takes him back to his own flat, where Harry dies. Panicked, Bill tries to arrange passage on the ship making the black market run, but the captain refuses to carry them unless Bill brings the penicillin. Bill returns to Jane and tells her Harry was not in her apartment and so must be alive, and convinces her to come away with him to America. She discovers the bloody scissors in his pocket, however, and determines to give herself up to the police. Bill tries to dissuade her, but eventually agrees their only chance at happiness is to face up to their actions.
Director
Norman Foster
Cast
Joan Fontaine
Burt Lancaster
Robert Newton
Lewis L. Russell
Aminta Dyne
Grizelda Hervey
Jay Novello
Colin Keith Johnston
Reginald Sheffield
Campbell Copelin
Leland Hodgson
Peter Hobbes
James Fowler
Robert Hale
Fred Fox
Jack Carol
Thomas P. Dillon
Joseph Granby
Robin Hughes
Harry Cording
Art Foster
Don Maccracken
Harry Allen
Valerie Cardew
Ben H. Wright
Wally Scott
Harold Goodwin
Keith Hitchcock
Alec Harford
Lora Lee Michel
Jimmy Aubrey
Leslie Denison
Arthur Gould-porter
Kenneth Harvey
Tommy Hughes
Tom Pilkington
George Bunny
Charles Mcnaughton
Timothy Bruce
Anne Whitfield
Suzanne Kerr
Patty King
Frank Hagney
James Logan
David Mcmahon
Ola Lorraine
Richard Glynn
Marilyn Williams
Al Ferguson
David Dunbar
Harry Wilson
Jack Stoney
Duke Green
Wesley Hopper
Felippa Rock
Mildred Hale
Crew
Leonardo Bercovici
Walter Bernstein
Leslie I. Carey
Milton Carruth
Norman Deming
Carmen Dirigo
Russell A. Gausman
Hugh Gray
Hugh Gray
John Hambleton
Harold Hecht
Bernard Herzbrun
David S. Horsley
David S. Horsley
Corson Jowett
Nathan Juran
Ruby R. Levitt
Ben Maddow
Miklos Rozsa
Richard Vernon
Jack Voglin
Bud Westmore
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title for this film was The Unafraid. In 1948 Dell Publications released a new paperback edition of Gerald Butler's novel retitled The Unafraid. According to Hollywood Reporter news items, the film's title was to be changed from Kiss the Blood Off My Hands to the less graphic Blood on My Hands. A New York Times news item indicates that the PCA initially blocked the full title, but that decision was later overturned on appeal.
The following written prologue appears in the onscreen credits: "The aftermath of war is rubble-the rubble of cities and men-They are the casualties of a pitiless destruction. The cities can be rebuilt, but the wounds of men, whether of the mind or the body, heal slowly. This is the story of one such man and the girl whose path he crossed."
A news item from the Los Angeles Times indicates that Eagle-Lion Productions purchased an option on Butler's novel in 1946 as a starring vehilcle for Robert Donat. Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was the first production for Norma Productions, an independent company formed by producer and actor Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster and named after Lancaster's wife. The film marked British actor Robert Newton's American film debut. According to a February 1948 Hollywood Reporter item, cinematographer Gregg Toland was originally hired as the director of photographer. Studio production notes indicate that some scenes were filmed on location at the Griffith Park Zoo in Los Angeles. During the film's production Joan Fontaine was absent for 12 days due to her pregnancy.
Contemporary news items indicate that in March 1948 Charles K. Feldman Productions filed a million dollar suit against ten co-defendants, including Universal-International, Norma Productions, Inc., Gerald Butler, Richard Vernon, Burt Lancaster, Joan Fontaine, Eagle-Lion of New York, Phil Berg-Bert Allenberg, Inc., Curtil Brown, Ltd., Harold Hecht and Allan Collins, over ownership of the screen rights to Butler's novel. Daily Variety notes that in July 1948 the California Superior Court sustained the demurrer of Universal-International and the defendants. There is no indication that the Feldman Group took further action. Fontaine and Lancaster recreated their roles for the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast on February 21, 1949 under the title The Unafraid. Jay Novello, who had a small role in the film, was also in the broadcast.
