A Kiss Before Dying

A Kiss Before Dying is a 1956 American color film noir, directed by Gerd Oswald in his directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Lawrence Roman, based on Ira Levin's 1953 novel of the same name, which won the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The drama stars Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith, Joanne Woodward, and Mary Astor. It was remade in 1991 under the same title. Wagner plays a charming, intelligent man who will stop at nothing to get his life where he wants it to go. His problem is a pregnant womanplayed by Woodward in one of her first film roleswho loves him. The solution involves desperate measures. Plot In 1956, Bud Corliss is an ambitious University student who is wooing fellow student Dorothy Kingship purely for her father's mining fortune. When he discovers that Dorothy is pregnant with his child, he realizes she is quite likely to be disinherited by her father, Leo Kingship. She does not care about this, saying she feels "like me" for the first time in her life, free of her father's control. Bud assures Dorothy that he will take care of her, hesitates when Dorothy insists on getting married, but then seemingly agrees to it. After she experiences a fall on some bleachers, Bud spends the days leading up to their wedding formulating an elaborate plan to make it appear that she has committed suicide. He is stunned into near panic when this fails. On the day they are to be married, Bud purposely has Dorothy meet him at the Municipal Building during the lunch hour when the registry office is closed. He suggests they go to the roof for some air. There, he manipulates her into position and pushes her off the building; her death is considered a suicide because of a letter he had forged and mailed to her sister in anticipation of his original plan working.