Elaine Stritch (already a decade into a fascinating Broadway career that would span more than 60 years) and a surprisingly handsome and already understated Steven Hill (MUCH later to create the solid district attorney in the first years of LAW AND ORDER) provide the main points of interest in this wanna-be tawdry independent film that evokes nothing so much as LOLITA meets LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA while driving through Tennessee Williams territory trying to find the way to KEY LARGO. It never gets there.
The inconsistent writing (dropped motivations and theatre references coming out of nowhere) is not helped by the cinematography and direction which looks like 50's television not movie work. A bad episode of Perry Mason perhaps - before the murder happens - all freshly scrubbed, possibly TOO cleanly filmed set-up, lots of innuendo (but none a CBS censor wouldn't pass), no real punch even when it tries to steal ideas from classic tension makers like FRANKENSTEIN (the scene with the monster and the little girl) or DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS (the frustrated boy with oppressive parent). It isn't good enough to be really bad, or bad enough to be really good.
While only released after Stritch's Broadway musical GOLDILOCKS had come and gone (Oct. '58 - Feb. '59 despite a wonderful score and hilarious book - Noël Coward saw Stritch in THAT and wrote a show for her as a result), KISS HER GOODBYE was probably filmed just before she went into rehearsals for the musical - shortly after the all too quick Broadway flop of THE SIN OF PAT MULDOON (one week in 1957 - not long enough to take the bloom off Stritch's well received performance in BUS STOP, 1955-56, which probably got her this role).
The film, like ...PAT MULDOON, didn't appear to make enough of an impression to actually hurt anyone's career - but it didn't help anyone's either. The New York Times Directory of Film doesn't even list a N.Y. Times review for it - though it does list five other film notices involving Hill from 1950 to 1965 and three others for Stritch from 1957 to January of '59.
What a pity. The leads in KISS HER GOODBYE deserved better, but fans of their mature work should enjoy seeing them near the start.
