No Way To Treat A Lady (1968) Black Comedy Transitional Noir

Mommy made him do it.

Directed by Jack Smight. 

Smight directed episodes of (The Twilight Zone (TV Series), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV Series), Naked City (TV Series), Route 66 (TV Series). Harper (1966)). Written by John Gay and based on the eponymous novel by William Goldman. Cinematography was by Jack Priestley (Naked City (TV Series), Across 110th Street (1972) and Music by Stanley Myers.

The film has a lot of cinematic memory going for it.

The film stars Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront (1954), The Big Knife (1955), The Harder They Fall (1956), The Unholy Wife (1957), Cry Terror! (1958), The Pawnbroker (1964), In the Heat of the Night (1967)) as Christopher Gill

Rod Steiger as Christopher Gill

Lee Remick (A Face in the Crowd (1957), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Experiment in Terror (1962), The Detective (1968), ) as Kate Palmer. 

Lee Remick as Kate Palmer

George Segal (The Longest Day (1962), Naked City TV Series, King Rat (1965),  ) as Morris Brummel.

Eileen Heckart (Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Bus Stop (1956), The Bad Seed (1956), Naked City (TV Series), ) as Mrs. Brummel. 

Eileen Heckart as Mrs Brummel

The rest of the cast has Murray Hamilton (Anatomy of a Murder (1959), The Hustler (1961), Seconds (1966), The Graduate (1967), The Boston Strangler (1968)) as Inspector Haines, Michael Dunn (The Wild Wild West TV series) as Mr. Kupperman, Martine Bartlett as Alma Mulloy,

Barbara Baxley (The Savage Eye (1960)) as Belle Poppie, Irene Dailey as Mrs. Fitts, Doris Roberts as Sylvia Poppie, Ruth White as Mrs. Himmel, Val Bisoglio as Detective Monaghan and David Doyle as Lieutenant Dawson.

The Story

Christopher Gill has "Mommy Issues."

Mommy was a renowned Broadway stage actress. Her signature look was large red lipstick-ed lips. They are the prominent feature on all her theater posters. 

Christopher owns a theater and is also a director.  He's  alienated and obsessed. One day Christopher takes a dive off the deep end of the pool into insanity and starts strangling old ladies. Each corpse is drug into a bathroom propped up on a toilet seat and festooned with a large lipstick "kiss of death" upon their foreheads.

To get into the good graces of the women Christopher adopts a different character as a disguise. A priest for his Irish victim, a German plumber for Mrs. Himmel, and others including a policeman, a gay hairdresser, a caterer an older woman. 

The NYPD detective assigned to the case is Morris "Moe" Brummel. Moe still lives with his very Jewish mother. Their banter is quite stereotypically humorous. Ma wants Moe to be more successful like his Doctor brother rather than a cop.

When Moe investigates the initial murder he meets attractive shiksa Kate Palmer who lives in the apartment house and who saw the priest who nocked on Mrs. Malloy's door. They like what each other sees. 

 Moe's mom just sees more oy vey.

Noirsville

Barbara Baxley as Belle Poppie

Michael Dunn as Mr. Kupperman

Murray Hamilton as Inspector Haines

Director Smight entertainingly mixes this paella of Noir, Crime, Love Story, and Black Comedy. Steiger shines as he sort of tweaks and reprises some of his memorable past characters. You can't miss Chief Bill Gillespie from In The Heat Of The Night reincarnated as a pseudo NYPD cop, hints of the Mr. Joyboy character from The Loved One and Paul Hoplin from Cry Terror!,  and some of Sol Nazerman from The Pawnbroker in the German plumber. Its definitely Steiger's film. The rest of the cast just tries to keep up as best they can. 7.5/10