A Kiss Before Dying

Ben Mankiewicz introduces A Kiss Before Dying, 1956.

TCM's Dave Karger introduces A Kiss Before Dying, 1956.

Shooting on location near the Guadalupe Peak Trail outside Tucson, Virginia Leith as heiress Ellen is now totally ensnared by Robert Wagner as Bud, who now has not only sold his murder of her sister as a suicide, but also now killed the guy he set up for having driven her to it, in the byzantine A Kiss Before Dying, 1956, from an Ira Levin novel.

Gobbling up more Tucson scenery, Virginia Leith as Ellen, wealthy sister of Dorothy (Joanne Woodward), whose murder has been officially ruled a suicide, receives a memento, then a phone call (from Bud, Robert Wagner, who committed the murder, and who is apparently now dating her!), then clashes with her cruel father (George MacReady), in A Kiss Before Dying, 1956.

Characters discussed but never seen before the murder (disguised as suicide) of Dory (Joanne Woodward), George MacReady her father, Virginia Leith her sister, Howard Petrie the police chief and Jeffrey Hunter, whom we have met, as the college tutor and weirdly, we learn, also part-time cop Gordon, with the culprit (Robert Wagner as “Bud” Corliss) lurking in Tucson’s El Presidio Park, in A Kiss Before Dying, 1956.

Following the credits and almost all in one take (by career A-D Gerd Oswald in his first outing as a director) college man Bud (Robert Wagner) has a slippery attitude already in place as well-to-do townie girlfriend Dorothy (Joanne Woodward) tells him she's pregnant, in A Kiss Before Dying, 1956.

Shiftless B-M-O-C Bud (Robert Wagner) meets pregnant girlfriend, whom he calls "Doree" (Joanne Woodward), who wants to set a wedding date, still playing it cagey, and maybe taking a stab at accidentally killing her (?), early in A Kiss Before Dying, 1956, from the Ira Levin novel.