The film rights to A Kiss Before Dying were purchased by Darryl Zanuck at Twentieth Century-Fox while Levin's novel was still in unpublished galley form. (As would happen again 14 years later, when producer William Castle came calling for Rosemary's Baby.)
A Kiss Before Dying was shot in Fox's new CinemaScope process – making A Kiss Before Dying the first mystery novel to be purchased by Hollywood for the widescreen format (Cosmopolitan, 1953)
The film's bright, color-saturated rendering of fictional "Blue River, Iowa" perfectly spotlights Levin's penchant for placing malevolent goings-on in the sunlit, everyday world. (He'd return to similarly bucolic surroundings some 20 years later, with another fictional setting – Stepford.)
“...wearily peeling potatoes. Private Levin's reaction? He promptly cut his thumb.”
We have reason to believe the encounter was pure editorial fancy.
