Product Details

• Actors: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene
• Directors: Robert Siodmak
• Writers: Anthony Veiller, Ernest Hemingway, John Huston, Richard Brooks
• Producers: Mark Hellinger
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: April 28, 1998
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0783217528
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,001 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

This 1946 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story adds well over an hour of new material to the original tale. The reason is, while director Robert Siodmak, star Burt Lancaster, and an outstanding supporting cast are faithful to Hemingway's work, his story only takes up about 15 minutes of screen time. Burt Lancaster plays the doomed man sought by hired guns in a small town. Hemingway's bruisingly concise dialogue makes an early sequence set in a diner quite unnerving, but after the killers dispense with their prey, Siodmak turns to an insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) who looks into the reasons behind the murder. An exemplary film noir (complete with a fickle femme fatale played by Ava Gardner), The Killers is all mood and fatalism. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lancaster's Screen Debut is Memorable, June 1, 2000

By 

Vincent Tesi "Vinny" (Brick, New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Killers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Adapted from an Earnest Hemingway short story, The Killers is an exceptional noir classic showcased by Burt Lancaster's screen debut and Ava Gardner's stealthy performance as a seductress. The film opens with two ominous hitmen driving into a small town and stopping at the local diner. The title implies that the film centers on these two characters, but the two hired guns only set up the realistic tone that pervades the remainder of the film. At the diner the henchmen interrogate , taunt, and intimidate the proprietor, a customer, and the cook. The opening sequence is tinged with deadpan dialogue, harsh lighting, and a foreboding warning that death is imminent. Charles McGraw and William Conrad play the torepedoes to the hilt as evidenced by these lines: "Talk to me bright boy, what do you think's going to happen?" "I'll tell you. "We're going to kill a Swede." "Do you know a big Swede named Ole Andreson?" (Lancaster) When a customer (Phil Brown tries to warn the Swede of the impending doom, the Swede laying in bed can only lament that running will not solve his problem. Shortly after the hitmen burst into the shadowy boardinghouse room and blast away. The film then becomes a narrative flashback as an insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) attempts to piece together the Swede's troubled past. It seems that something far more dangerous than bullets killed the Swede years before- the unrequited love for a beautiful, manipulative vixen named Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner). The film is brilliantly directed by Robert Siodmak who assumed direction after a disgruntled John Huston bowed out. Sidomak's European impressionistic influence is evident as he paints a canvass of dark moods and brushes in a desperate stroke of male vunerability. The Swede may have been a tough boxer, but he is no match for Kitty. Edmond O'Brien turns in a credible performance as the insurance investigator who combines the events, places, and people together that led to the Swede's death. All of Sidomak's ventures into the realm of noir were excellent works - (Cry of the City, Criss Cross, The Phantom Lady), but The Killers ranks as his crowning statement.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Swede Lives Forever, August 25, 2002

By 

andy7 (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Killers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Edmond O'Brien, the King of Noir. Ava Gardner, like a porcelain goddess femme fatale. Burt Lancaster as the victim in waiting. Albert Dekker, the villain from "Kiss Me Deadly". What more do you want?
The climax in the roadhouse with accelerating piano notes will have you grabbing your chair, the curtains, and the carpet all at once. A great noir film that never loses its path or pace, it's about greed and lust and all the death that follows it.
Look for an appearance by William (Cannon, Jay Ward cartoons) Conrad as a brutal hit man.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless film-noir classic, December 16, 2004

By 

Cory D. Slipman (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Killers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Robert Siodmak's able direction of Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers" resulted in an outstanding vintage 1940's crime drama. With a superb cast and a convoluted intriguing plot with unexpected twists, this flick was a top shelf offering.

The story begins with the assassination of ex-pug Ole Andersen known as "The Swede" played by a youthful Burt Lancaster, a personal favorite. The Swede had been a boxer in Philadelphia of modest skills whose career short circuited due to a badly broken hand. He soon joined a group of criminals headed by Albert Dekker where he met and became enamored with the drop dead gorgeous Ava Gardner. Falling deeply in love with Gardner, Lancaster winds up taking the fall for her when she's appprehended with stolen jewelry by old time Lancaster friend police lieutenant Lubinsky played by Sam Levene.

After serving a 3 year sentence Lancaster emerges from prison only to take up with his old gang. When a robbery for $250,000 goes bad Lancaster goes into hiding in a small New Jersey town where he is eventually murdered.

Terrific and accomplished film noir actor Edmond O'Brien playing insurance investigator Jim Reardon begins to delve into the circumstances surrounding The Swede's death when his personal effects reveal a life insurance policy serviced by O'Brien's company.