One can imagine Da Vinci doing a number of sketches, prior to finishing the Mona Lisa, that he tossed into the garbage or burned in his fireplace. "Killer's Kiss" looks like one of Kubrick's early sketches. A normal artist would have tossed it out. But in filmmaking, any detritus that could possibly make a dime or get the director a better gig is promptly vomited into the unsuspecting marketplace.

The story is about a washed-up boxer, Davy Gordon (Jamie Smith), who falls in love with a dancer, Gloria (Irene Kane), who lives across the way from him. This affair proves difficult, since Gloria's boyfriend is a gangster (Frank Silvera) who'd rather see her dead than with another man.

One of the techniques Kubrick uses in this film is the familiar shot of a guy sitting in his room looking across the way into another apartment. In this case, Davy's apartment is like five feet from Gloria's, and both of them do just about everything with their windows wide open. The only explanation for Gloria's changing clothes in front of her open window is that she's an exhibitionist or has a serious psychological problem, which should have led Davy to conclude that she wasn't worth getting involved with. However, since he's a loser, he does anyway. If this were the real Kubrick and not the early ass-kissing Kubrick, the loser would have gotten what was coming to him in the end.