A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

A scheming social climber (Robert Wagner) from a middle class background woos a girl (Joanne Woodward) from a wealthy family. But when she gets pregnant, he realizes her disapproving father (George Macready) will cut her out of his will thus making her of no use to him. So he murders her while making it look like a suicide. But his ambitious plans won't stop there and he continues on both his gold digging and homicidal paths. Based on the award winning novel by Ira Levin (ROSEMARY'S BABY), this is a compact little noir-ish thriller directed by Gerd Oswald (SCREAMING MIMI) with a controlled grasp that keeps things tight and moving at an economical clip. Rather than shoot the film in B&W with all the shadows and light associated with noir, like LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN it's shot in vivid and bright sunshine. The film gives the young Wagner a juicy role that showed he was more than just a hunky pin-up for teenaged girls and possessed a genuine acting ability. With Jeffrey Hunter, Mary Astor, Virginia Leith and Robert Quarry.