The Death Kiss

The Death Kiss is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery film starring David Manners as a crusading studio writer, Adrienne Ames as an actress, and Bela Lugosi as a studio manager. The thriller features three leading players from the previous year's Dracula (Lugosi, Manners, and Edward Van Sloan), and was the first film directed by Edwin L. Marin. The film was produced by KBS Productions at Tiffany Pictures and released by Sono Art-World Wide Pictures. The film's main plot devices was reused for the 1946 French film That's Not the Way to Die starring Erich von Stroheim. The film is currently in the public domain. Plot During the filming of a death scene of The Death Kiss, leading man Myles Brent is really shot and killed. Tonart Studios manager Joseph Steiner (Lugosi) is assigned to handle the situation. The studio wants to pass it off as a simple accident, but screenwriter Franklyn Drew (Manners) digs a bullet out of a wall and tells Homicide Detective Lieutenant Sheehan that it is a .38 caliber, while the guns used in the film are all .45s. Sheehan finds a letter in the dead man's pocket, in which Brent wrote to his lawyer that Marcia Lane (Ames), his co-star and ex-wife, would not sign a release as beneficiary of his $200,000 life insurance policy. Chalmers, an alcoholic extra with a self-admitted grudge against Brent for getting him fired as head gaffer (electrician), is spotted trying to dispose of a loaded .38, but Drew points out that the gun has not been fired.