The Crimson Kimono (1959)

Sam Fuller's The Crimson Kimono kicks off with the shooting of a stripper named Sugar Torch, who staggers out of her seedy place of business to die in the middle of a busy Los Angeles street. It's a suitably lurid beginning to this perfectly Fuller-ian blend of gritty pulp noir, over-the-top melodrama, and in-your-face social commentary. Two detectives, one white (Glenn Corbett) and the other Japanese-American (James Shigeta), roommates and best friends since serving together in the Korean War, are sent to investigate the murder, and along the way have a vicious, jealousy-fueled falling out over a beautiful painter (Victoria Shaw), whose work is involved in the crime. Shot in and around Los Angeles' Little Tokyo neighborhood, The Crimson Kimono has a surprisingly complex take on racial and cultural prejudice, and a blunt, almost cynical view of human relationships ("Love is like a battle," says one character, "Somebody has to get a bloody nose."). This provocative film was received rather poorly at the time, but the daringly prolonged interracial kiss that concludes it packs more of a wallop than anything in the more earnest social issue movies of the day. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide