Themes: Dishonor Among Thieves, Haunted By the Past, Crime Gone Awry
Main Cast: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker, Jeff Corey, Sam Levene, Jack Lambert
Release Year: 1946
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
The Killers uses Ernest Hemingway's short story as a springboard for a complex film noir. Two mysterious men (William Conrad and Charles McGraw) muscle their way into a small town and kill an aging boxer (Burt Lancaster, making his screen debut), who offers no resistance and seems to be welcoming his death. An insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) is hired to locate the beneficiary to Lancaster's policy, and in the course of his investigation reopens a long-dormant robbery case. In a series of flashbacks, O'Brien makes the connection between Lancaster and the robbery and tracks down the "brains" behind the operation. He also comes in contact with Lancaster's former girlfriend (Ava Gardner), whose duplicity played a big part in Lancaster's demise -- and his indifferent reaction to it. Siodmak's hard-edged, moody direction of the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Anthony Veiller, makes The Killers one of the definitive films noirs, including what is considered to be one of the greatest opening sequences in movie history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Adapted (and expanded) by Anthony Veiller and an uncredited John Huston from Ernest Hemingway's story, Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946) weaves a complex film noir tale of obsessive love and multiple double-crosses. Shrouded in shadows as he awaits and accepts his fate in the opening scenes, Burt Lancaster's ex-prizefighter Swede is already a mystery. Fragmentary flashbacks within flashbacks relate Swede's story to Edmond O' Brien's intrepid insurance investigator from multiple points of view, but they never entirely get inside his head even if they illuminate his fate. Ava Gardner's satiny Kitty Collins is equally, and more dangerously, enigmatic, as her actions become as unpredictably complex as the film's byzantine narrative structure. Stylishly shot, particularly in the opening night-for-night and sustained heist sequences, the film builds suspense through the deliberate accretion of details about a foregone conclusion. Lancaster's film debut as the physically imposing but psychologically devastated Swede made him a star, while Gardner's poisonously beautiful siren turned her into a love goddess on a par with Rita Hayworth. A critical and box office success, The Killers received Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Martin Obzina - Art Director, Jack Otterson - Art Director, Vera West - Costume Designer, Melville Shyer - First Assistant Director, Robert Siodmak - Director, Arthur D. Hilton - Editor, Miklos Rozsa - Composer (Music Score), Jack Brooks - Songwriter, Miklos Rozsa - Songwriter, Jack Pierce - Makeup, Elwood Bredell - Cinematographer, Mark Hellinger - Producer, Russell A. Gausman - Set Designer, Edward Ray Robinson - Set Designer, David S. Horsley - Special Effects, Bernard B. Brown - Sound/Sound Designer, John Huston - Screenwriter, Anthony Veiller - Screenwriter, Ernest Hemingway - Short Story Author
