User Reviews

Universal International's THE KILLERS (1946) is arguably the finest Noir ever to come out of Hollywood. It certainly has the most effective opening scene of anything that was ever seen in a film of this type before or after. Bright street lighting throws long dark shadows on the street that emanate from the two wanton and pernicious hit men of the title as they stealthily walk to a diner in the small town of Brentwood seeking their prey. With stunning monochrome cinematography by Elwood Bredell and underscored by the ominous pulsating music of Miklos Rozsa it is one of the most perfectly conceived sequences ever seen on the screen. From a short story by Ernest Hemingway THE KILLERS was beautifully adapted and written for the screen by Anthony Vieller and bracingly directed by master craftsman Robert Siodmak. This was the second of three high tension crime thrillers produced for the studio by Mark Hellinger - the other two being "Brute Force" (1947) and "Naked City" (1948)

A brooding Burt Lancaster, in his first starring role, plays ex prizefighter Ole Anderson known as the "Swede" who has buried himself in the unknown town of Brentwood where he works at a filling station. But the "Swede" is a man with a past! Years before he was involved in a robbery and after double crossing the gang he absconded with the loot. Now it's payback time and two hit men (Charles McGraw and William Conrad) have been sent to Brentwood to "take him out".("Why do you want to kill the "Swede" asks the barman in the diner "We're killing him for a friend" replies Conrad coldly). But the "Swede" doesn't run and is strangely reticent about his impending fate. Even his friend Nick Adams (Phil Brown) warns him about the two strangers in the diner intending to kill him. "Why do they want to kill you" Nick asks........."I did something wrong ......once" responds a resigned "Swede". Later after the killers fulfil their grisly contract (a brilliantly intense heart stopping scene) an insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) is assigned to find out the whole story about the Swede. And in flashback we see how he fell in love with the beautiful Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) wife of gang boss (Albert Dekker) and the series of events and double crosses that occurred before and after the heist that ultimately led to his killing.

Performances are excellent from all concerned. Lancaster is terrific as the ill-fated "Swede" and Ava Gardner never looked more ravishing than she does here. But superb are those in smaller parts such as gang members Albert Dekker, Jack Lambert, Jeff Corey, Sam Lavene as a cop and not forgetting the perfect casting of William Conrad and the chilling Charles McGraw as the title characters. Carrying the whole thing along is the extraordinary nominated atmospheric score by the great Miklos Rozsa. His raw biting music with terse rhythms and musical hammer blows adds immeasurably to the picture. ( Curiously his motif for the two killers was "stolen" and used without permission as the theme for the long running TV series "Dragnet" in the early fifties.) Rozsa'a music for films came in three distinct phases. The first phase was his writing for fantasy films which included "Thief Of Bagdad" (1940) and "Jungle Book" (1942). THE KILLERS came from the second phase which covered his output for psychological and crime thrillers like "Spellbound" (1946), "Lost Weekend" (1945) and "Brute Force" (1947). Then finally his third phase - for which he is best known - covered his work on historical and epic subjects like "Quo Vadis" (1951), "Ivanhoe" (1952),"Ben Hur" (1959) and "El Cid" (1962).These films all had unequalled rich highly textured vibrant scores.

Rozsa's powerful music is but one aspect alongside editing, cinematography, directing, writing and great performances that makes THE KILLERS an exceptional work of cinematic art. Here is a movie that maintains a palpable dramatic thrust throughout its running time. Few films achieve this. THE KILLERS does ....in spades!

This is the definitive version of Ernest Hemingway's short story put to film, some say. A film noir classic, in every sense of the word, some say.

Up front, I will say I wanted to watch the 1964 version first before re-watching this, (I had not seen this in over 10 years) because I was afraid I would not like the 1964 version, if I had seen this first. So, this review is based upon those circumstances.

This is in fact a good film noir. The biggest asset and the main star and attraction of the whole film is its style. It reeks of atmosphere and shadows and everything a great film noir should look like and feel like. But its main weakness is the lack of development in the characters we should be feeling something for. But we are not made to empathize with really anyone. Burt Lancaster is a great actor, but his "Swede" is essentially "walking dead." And, Ava Gardner, while beautiful, gives very little to humanize her character.

(One aside: Every time I have ever seen Burt in a movie, I always think of the word immaculate. His figure is lean and his appearance neat and perfect. No actor is as immaculate as Burt Lancaster.)

Getting back to the film, the only interesting ongoing character is Albert Dekker as the brains behind the heist, as he is actively keeping the momentum going. Another big weakness is the fact that no one in the movie knows what the other one's doing. Burt never knew Dekker had double-crossed him. The others in the heist never knew Dekker double-crossed them. (There was no fun in the climax or denouement. No ah ha moment!) And, too much was relied on the use of flashbacks, I think.

The 1964 version saw these problems and solved them by stressing the action and another point I have not mentioned: the actual killers, played wonderfully by William Conrad and Charles McGraw. There's more entertainment value in their 10 minutes, than the rest of the picture, with their perfect delivery of simple lines. Conrad and McGraw, you are not forgotten.The viewer is captivated by them and wants to see them again. We do, when they get killed themselves. The makers of the 1964 version saw they were the highlight and developed them and in that way made the whole story more interesting.

I know it sounds like I'm blasting it. It should be seen once. But multiple viewings may tend to show its flaws too much. Unless you want to see just the first ten minutes, which is what the short story covered anyway: the diner scene. Just try ordering the dinner! Just try!

Ernest Hemingway once described the only proper way to do business with Hollywood. You drive up to the California border and stop before you cross it. The producers show up on the other side. You throw them the contract. They throw you the money and you catch it and run away.

Nice typical fifteen-minute noir opening informed by Hemingway's brand of ambiguity. There's a small town in New Jersey. Two malicious-looking mean-talking guys enter the diner and insinuate themselves into a position of command in a few minutes, making an occasional wisecrack. They announce that they've come to town to kill a Swede. After they leave, one of the customers runs to warn the Swede, but the Swede lies there in bed and says, thanks for coming, but there's nothing I can do. End of story.

The rest of the movie owes nothing to Hemingway and has to stand on its own. And it's not bad. Edmond O'Brien enters the story as an insurance investigator determined to find out why the Swede (Lancaster) left his $2500 life insurance to a elderly chambermaid in Atlantic City, whom he'd met six years ago and known for only two days. One tip leads to an implausible other tip and before you know it -- well, within a week anyway -- O'Brien has the case solved and the bad guys all dead and the femme fatale (Ava Gardner) sent to the slams.

If it's above average -- and it is -- it's because it is supertypical, almost an "ideal type" out of Max Weber. Lots of low-key lighting, mostly night shooting, Miklos Roza's ominous score (including a leitmotiv for the two killers that sounds exactly like the theme from "Dragnet"). Everybody double crosses everybody else. Of two childhood pals, one grows up to be a cop and the other a gangster. A beautiful and dangerous woman lies to a gullible but fundamentally decent guy but chooses to follow the money, casting her perils before swains. Sam Levene has a haircut that looks like the prototype for Don King's. A nightclub called the Green Kitty Cat or something, whose piano player launches into a nerve-rattling boogie tune when the two killers come down the stairs looking for O'Brien.

Towards the end it gets a little confusing. Let's see. A quarter of a million dollars is stolen from the Prentiss Hat Factory in Hackensack. At the end, O'Brien seems to have recovered the money -- but I don't know how.

There are some niggling flaws. Lancaster and his cell mate are in stir examining the stars through the bars. The cell mate (Vincent Barnett) has been studying stars for years. So how come he mispronounces "Orion"? And how come he says Orion is also known as The Big Bear? And how come he says Betelgeuse is the brightest star in the heavens? Now that I think about it, this is not a niggling flaw at all. It's deeply disturbing. And I'd feel even worse if I were Orion or Sirius.

The writer did his homework in other ways though. Yes, Chestnut is a prominent street in Philadelphia. And Newark at the time was filled with insurance companies, a poor man's Hartford. And MArket was a real telephone exchange in Newark. The Ledger was the most prominent local paper, and still is, though it's now the Star-Ledger. I'll have to check on those hats in Hackensack.

Final note: It's interesting how Hemingway, through his prose and dialog, almost created his own universe which, once immersed, the viewer comes to take for granted as natural. But Big Ernie's dialog doesn't translate too well to the screen, nor does his writing style. (Name a very good movie made from a Hemingway story.) What looks pungent on the page comes out arch on the screen. Of course there's not a heck of a lot of Hemingway in this movie anyway -- only the opening scene, up to the point at which the Swede dies with grace.

Two hit men bump off unresisting victim Ole "Swede" Anderson (Burt Lancaster, terrific in his film debut) without a hitch. Shrewd and persistent insurance investigator Jim Reardon (an excellent performance by Edmond O'Brien) decides to pursue the case and untangles a complex web of crime and trickery that leads to the lovely, yet lethal Kitty Collins (ably played to the irresistibly sultry hilt by a ravishing Ava Gardner).

Director Robert Siodmark, working from a crafty and compelling script by Anthony Veiller, not only relates the gripping and intricate story at a steady pace and stages several action set pieces with breathtaking skill and precision, but also does a masterful job of crafting an extremely dark, tense, and brooding fatalistic atmosphere where almost everyone is crooked and practically nothing is initially what it seems to be. The super acting by the top-rate cast keeps this movie humming, with especially stand-out contributions from Albert Dekker as fearsome ringleader Big Jim Colfax, Sam Levene as helpful and streetwise cop Lt. Sam Lubinsky, Vince Barnett as petty thief Charleston, Virginia Christine as the sweet Lily Harmon, Jack Lambert as vicious hoodlum 'Dum-Dum' Clarke, Jeff Corey as doomed junkie Blinky Franklin, and, best of all, Charles McGraw and William Conrad as the splendidly mean and menacing killers Al and Max. Elwood Bredell's sumptuous black and white cinematography provides a beautifully moody look and boasts a few striking unbroken crane shots. The robust score by Miklos Rozsa hits the stirring spot. Highly recommended.

Robert Siodmak's best known movie is an excellent thriller which marked the debut of screen legend Burt Lancaster and also launched the career of Ava Gardner. It was a great box office success, drew positive reviews from the critics and was also nominated for four Academy Awards.

Lancaster plays the role of Ole "The Swede" Andersen, a professional boxer who had to retire because of a serious hand injury. Having been used to high financial rewards in his boxing career, he couldn't contemplate the more modest levels of income offered by conventional jobs and so went into the numbers racket before spending a period of time in prison and then going on to take part in a payroll robbery.

At the beginning of the movie, two contract killers arrive at Brentwood N.J. and after visiting a diner, go to The Swede's boarding house room and shoot him. Later, Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) an insurance investigator becomes involved when it emerges that The Swede had a policy with the Atlantic Insurance Company. As there are no apparent reasons why The Swede had been killed or why his beneficiary is a chambermaid in Atlantic City, Reardon's interest becomes aroused and he goes on to interview a whole series of characters who are each able to contribute various pieces of information which, when put together, enable him to establish the background to the incident at Brentwood.

During his investigation, Reardon discovers that The Swede had fallen under the spell of Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) and had, in fact, served a prison sentence for a crime she committed. Despite this personal sacrifice, Kitty never either visited or wrote to him during all the time that he was incarcerated. On being released from prison, The Swede went on to become a member of a gang led by Jim Colfax (Albert Dekker). Kitty was in a relationship with Colfax, but The Swede's obsession with her remained undiminished. The gang went on to carry out a payroll heist and complications later arose in making arrangements to share the proceeds. His role in this, led to him being duped and betrayed in a way which left him a fugitive from the other gang members and without any personal profit from the robbery.

"The Killers" is a movie that stands up well to repeat viewings and the device of unveiling the plot through such a large number of flashbacks seems very authentic and is used so expertly that the end result never loses pace or becomes disjointed. The movie looks really good and some of the sequences, such as the one between the arrival of the hit men in Brentwood and the murder of The Swede, are like a masterclass in how to establish atmosphere and mood through the medium of light and shadow. Miklos Rozsa's score, (now more widely known as the "Dragnet" music) sounds sombre and threatening and fits the mood of the piece perfectly.

Lancaster gives a strong performance as a man who is the victim of his own obsessive attraction to someone who exploits him mercilessly and it's interesting to see his demeanour change as he goes from being the courageous boxer fighting with a painful injury, to the swaggering operator in the numbers racket, a helpless fall guy and eventually a haunted, humble attendant in the filling station in Brentwood. Don Siegel's 1964 remake is more perfunctory in both style and content and compares unfavourably to the Siodmak version.