Kiss the Blood Off My Hands

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands is a 1948 American noir-thriller film directed by Norman Foster. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Gerald Butler, it stars Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, and Robert Newton. The film faced minor opposition from fundamentalist groups in the United States and the Commonwealth, with regard to its gory title. In some markets, the film was released under the alternate titles The Unafraid (in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and smaller towns in the United States) or Blood on My Hands (in the United Kingdom).

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
  • Norman Foster
  • Robert Siodmak
Screenplay by
  • Leonardo Bercovici (screenplay)
  • Walter Bernstein (adaptation)
  • Ben Maddow (adaptation)
  • Hugh Gray (dialogue)
  • Philip MacDonald (uncredited)
Based onThe novel Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
by Gerald Butler
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyRussell Metty
Edited byMilton Carruth
Music byMiklós Rózsa
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal-International Pictures
Release date
  • October 29, 1948 (1948-10-29) (United States)
Running time
79 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million
Box office$1.6 million (US 1948 rentals)

The film was the first production by Lancaster and his agent Harold Hecht's new film production company, Norma Productions (co-produced through Harold Hecht Productions). Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was financed and distributed through a one-picture deal with Universal-International Pictures, in exchange for Lancaster appearing in the studio's production of All My Sons. The film was set in London, England but was shot almost entirely at Universal-International Pictures' Sound Stage 21 from March to May 1948. Some exterior scenes were shot on location at Los Angeles' Griffith Park Zoo and the Hollywood Park Racetrack.

The movie premiered on Friday, October 29, 1948, at Loew's Criterion Theater in New York City, and opened to over three hundred theaters in the United States starting on October 30 and through November 1948. In promotion of the film, Lancaster embarked on a tour performing a trapeze and acrobatic vaudeville act with his partner Nick Cravat. Some of the pair's stunts would be recreated and filmed for Norma Productions' next picture, the swashbuckler The Flame and the Arrow.

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