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The Killers [VHS]

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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.

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.

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.

Definitely belongs among the top rung of noir classics. All the elements are present in spades: from the femme fatale, to the doomed protagonist, to the hardened gunsels, to the ultimate double-cross. Most of all, this tour-de-force of deepening shadows, and cheap perfume gets its aura from the masterful photography of Woody Bredell and the complex camera set-ups of German director Robert Siodmak. Credit should also go to maverick producer Mark Hellinger who had a real feel for the material, while the script by Anthony Veiller snaps and crackles with appropriate innuendo and menace, punctuated by a terrific score from composer Miklos Rosza. Hellinger took a real chance telling so much of the story in alternating flashback, a definite departure for the more linear-minded audiences of the day. But the strategy works, as the pieces come powerfully together at film's end. This is early Burt Lancaster, rather sensitive and weak and clearly before joining the faces on Mt. Rushmore; it's also early Ava Gardner, enough to plunge any man into purgatory, before too many bullfighters and too much Sinatra coarsened the features and corroded the voice. Most of all, there's the always commanding Albert Dekker, a much underrated player, who could transform the dullest dialogue into the penetrating power of a.45 automatic on full trigger. Along with other noir icons: William Conrad, Jeff Corey, Jack Lambert and Charles Mc Graw. The opening sequence is as tense and taut and brilliantly photographed as any on record, with an air of menace and doom so thick that the killing comes as ecstatic release. This early noir entry set the pace and was never surpassed (though the very last shot seems badly misjudged). Anyone wondering what the fuss over this quintessentially 40's genre was all about should scope out The Killers, for a glimpse into the elusive heart of darkness, a glimpse, as it were, that came to define the entire species.

The Killers is one of my favorite movies. It represents Burt Lancaster's breakout role, and is the introduction of Ava Gardner. She was only 18 at the time. This movie is structured as a classic film noir with our doomed hero (Burt Lancaster's Ole Anderson) whose fate is out of his hands. Ava (Kitty) is a stunning femme fatale. When I saw this movie the first time I simply would not accept that she had double crossed our hero, that's how good she was at playing both sides of the street. The movie starts with our hero awaiting his impending murder, in a pose of resigned acceptance. The story is told by an insurance investigator who is charged with paying off Ole Anderson's life insurance beneficiary, a maid who had been kind to him during the lowest point of his life. The insurance agent gets interested in Ole's connection to a big robbery and the story unfolds. Burt is stunning to look at...he is all virile masculinity on the screen. Ava was unbelievably beautiful, and the scene where Ole gets pole-axed by Kitty is a classic. Excellent, classic noir made especially notable by its relevance to its two soon-to-be-famous stars.

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 who stop 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 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 torpedeos to the hilt. "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 lying in bed can only lament that running will not solve his problem. Shortly after, the hitmen burst into the dingy boardinghouse room and blast away. The film then becomes a narrative flashback interspersed with an insurance agent's quest to unravel the circumstances of the Swede's demise. It seems that something far more dangerous than bullets killed the Swede years before- the unrequited love for a manipulative vixen named Kitty (Gardner). The film is brilliantly directed by Robert Siodmak who assumed direction from a disgruntled John Huston. Siodmak uses his European influence as he paints a canvass of dark moods and brushes in a desperate stroke of male vulnerability. The Swede may have been a tough boxer, but he is no match for the cunning Kitty. Edmond O'Brien turns in a credible performance as the insurance investigator who pieces together the events, places, and people that ultimately led to the Swede's death. All of Siodmak's ventures into the realm of noir were excellent (Cry of the City, Criss Cross, The Phantom Lady), but The Killers ranks as his crowning jewel.

Hemmingways short story is merely a prelude to this classic noir entry. There is no doubt that this is a Mark Hellinger production. The cast is perfect with a seductive Ava Gardner around to short circuit the best laid plans of the robbers. The film is told in many flasbacks all centering around a payroll robbery. The terrific score by Miklos Rosza frames every scene with a tense energy ! CP

Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers" was one of the famous author's more power-laden stories. It involved as first person narrator the person considered to be Hemingway in his younger days, Nick Adams, who told about being in a diner in a small town when two big city mob types walked in, taking all inside captive at gunpoint and announcing they would wait until the mysterious new man in town, The Swede, showed up for dinner. When he did not arrive on schedule the two men left, their intent clear. Adams, a localite who knew a short cut, managed to reach the designated murder victim in his small rooming house room to warn him about what lay ahead. He thanked Adams but explained that he was tired of running and would accept his fate.

The story ended at that point and Anthony Veiller entered at that critical juncture, turning out a suspenseful screenplay as he filled in the blanks with gusto, aided by John Huston, who took no credit for his collaboration. The resulting 1946 film was one of the few adaptations of his work that Hemingway praised with enthusiasm, registering scorn in most instances for the way that Hollywood presented his novels and stories on screen.

Daring Universal producer Mark Hellinger decided to go against conventional wisdom and star unknowns in both the male and female lead roles. He reportedly felt confident after viewing the test scene featuring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. Hellinger spotted the same magic that all of us saw later in the finished product. Luckily for Lancaster, even though the first film he ever worked in was Paramount's ill-fated "Desert Fury" with Liz Scott and John Hodiak, his initial movie to be released was the blistering noir thriller, "The Killers," which was directed with appropriate speedy pacing by German emigre Robert Siodmak, who would direct Lancaster later in "Criss Cross" and "The Crimson Pirate."

Edmond O'Brien, who would star three years later in another noir classic, "D.O.A.", plays a wily and tenacious insurance investigator who pieces together the mystery behind Lancaster's murder. He encounters a constellation of great character performers, some of whom would later become television household names. Helping him solve the case is Philadelphia detective Sam Levene, the murder victim of crazed anti-Semitic psychopath Robert Ryan in "Crossfire." Levene, a Philadelphia boyhood chum of Lancaster's, marries his former girlfriend, Virginia Christine, who would gain fame in the sixties as Mrs. Olson on the Folger Coffee television commercials. He later is compelled to arrest Lancaster after he has stolen a diamond butterfly from the woman he has been infatuated with since their first meeting, Gardner.

Lancaster joins the mob of Big Jim Colfax, played by frequent movie heavy Albert Dekker, to be close to Gardner, someone with whom he is infatuated. He refuses to take the advice of former cellmate Vince Barnett, who tells him that Gardner and Dekker are double trouble. His determination to stay close to Gardner motivates Lancaster to become involved in the robbery of a hat factory under the direction of Dekker.

After the job has been completed Lancaster disappears, eventually turning up in Brentwood, New Jersey, where he gets a job at a gas station. He is believed to have stolen the entire proceeds from the robbery. Eventually he is spotted by Dekker when he stops at the station where Lancaster works to buy gas. As soon as Dekker leaves Lancaster tells co-worker Nick Adams that he is ill and needs to go home. He realizes that, with Dekker having spotted him, his life is over. The next time Adams sees The Swede it is to warn him about the visit from his executioners, played by Charles McGraw, who would assume the Bogart role of Rick in the television series "Casablanca" and William Conrad, star of the popular TV detective series "Cannon."

Knowledge of Lancaster's whereabouts spurs a battle by two members of the holdup team to reach him. Jeff Corey is killed by Jack Lambert. Corey's last dying moments, when he deliriously describes robbery events and what subsequently follows, with an anxious O'Brien carefully listening, is one of the film's dramatic highlights. Corey became a popular drama coach in Hollywood during the sixties, numbering Jack Nicholson, Roger Corman and Sally Kellerman among his students. Lambert was a regular in the television series "Riverboat."

Action heats up when O'Brien tracks down Gardner and they meet at a nightclub. Levene and the local police tag along, saving O'Brien's life in the gunfire ensuing over the effort of McGraw and Conrad to kill the insurance investigator. Instead they are killed in the gun battle.

The sting relating to the robbery's aftermath and the whereabouts of the heist proceeds is revealed in the film's final climactic scene at Dekker's home. Lambert dies after a gunfight with his old mob boss just a few minutes before Dekker. As Dekker is drawing his last few breaths a desperate Gardner asks him to clear her of criminal involvement in any of the robbery activities. Levene delivers one of the movie's most memorable lines when he bitterly comments that she is "asking a dying man to lie his soul into hell."

"The Killers" continues to be acknowleged as one of the great film noir and mystery masterpieces. The acting is brilliant, the script sharp, while Siodmak keeps the action moving at breakneck speed.

Since an insurance private eye investigates the murder of a wash up boxer he will be inmersed in a sordid underworld drama . An extendling Hemingway's taut tale.
Fine acting , superb script and masterful direction .
A must for those film noir lovers .

The Killers was also one of Hemmingway's favorite treatments of his work.
Lancaster is known as the Swede. He is quickly murdered by two hired goons. The Swede had an insurance policy that interests investigator Jim Reardon, played by Edmund O'Brien. Then the movie flashes back in that classic noir style to find out why the Swede was assassinated. Years before the Swede was a boxer. After boxing he falls in with a bad crowd & goes to prison, taking the rap for a woman he believes loves him. When he gets out he hooks up with a gang lead by "Big Jim" Colfax (Albert Dekker). His girl friend is Kitty played by Ava Gardner. She seems rather ambivalent about Big Jim, but you can tell she has a thing for the Swede & the felling is mutual. The gang sucessfully pulls a big payroll job but tries to cut the Swede out. Kitty tells the Swede of the gang's plan & he turns the tables, on them, stealing all of the money, as well as Kitty. They escape to a hotel where I imagine the Swede had the best night of his life. Kitty absconds with all the money the next morning before he wakes up. Then the movie returns to the the present which was 1946. You then find out the rest of the story. A young Ava Gardner & the new Burt Lancaster are the attraction in this one. Pretty good