Les tueurs

The Killers is an expansion of a short story by Ernest Hemingway. The first ten minutes of this film is pure Hemingway with two contract gunman occupying and terrorizing a greasy spoon diner. Two of the most malevolent character actors around, Charles McGraw and William Conrad are the hit men.

They're there to kill Burt Lancaster, known to the town as just a simple garage mechanic. Because he left a small insurance policy, his death was investigated by insurance cop Edmond O'Brien. Naturally Lancaster was no simple garage mechanic by any means. O'Brien comes up with Burt's real identity and the reason why a few people wanted him dead.

The Killers was a big break film for Burt Lancaster. He had only done one previous film and that was Desert Fury for Paramount studios which had signed him. Because Universal was looking for an unknown to play the victim, Lancaster's agent was able to land him the part. And because Desert Fury was held up, The Killers became his debut film and he was a star from his first film.

This was also a milestone film for Ava Gardner as well. After The Killers, Louis B. Mayer was most reluctant to lend her out any longer due to the notice that she got.

The plot of The Killers is very similar to that of Out of the Past with Lancaster in the luckless Robert Mitchum role. As for Ava Gardner in her portrayal, she's taking a couple of pages from the Mary Astor school of double crossing, two timing dames. At least Mary had Sam Spade's promise he'd wait for her.

The Killers is a must for Burt Lancaster fans who want to see the film that launched his career.

No need to recap the plot. Lancaster and Gardner may get star billing, but O'Brien gets the screen time. In fact, Lancaster's role is spotty, while Gardner's only big chance comes at the end. Otherwise, she sits around, looking beautiful and sexy, which she's supposed to. Clearly, O'Brien's insurance dick is no Phillip Marlowe. Instead he has to answer to a by-the-numbers boss (MacBride in a surprisingly straight role). Still, Reardon (O'Brien) has the one feature required of all noir private eyes—he's a seeker after truth, come what may. And in this case, it's what's with the suicidal Swede (Lancaster).

Also, get a load of that opening scene—a midnight diner, shadowy figures, an empty street. Noir seldom comes any purer. All that's missing is a lonely train whistle. In fact, I'll take that extended scene as the movie's best. McGraw and Conrad drop enough tough talk on the poor counterman to drown the average fall guy. It's from that tense 15-minutes that the movie gets what grit it has. The story's remainder is more like a metaphysical puzzle, as Reardon tries to piece together a solution to Swede's mysterious death. Trouble is he's got to rely on second-hand sources since Swede's in no condition to talk. Plus the sources from his past are disconnected in the telling, so it's like trying to figure out a jigsaw. Then too, will the pieces all fit since somebody could be lying—maybe the squinty Dumb-Dumb or the cringing Charleston, or even the curiously laid-back Colfax (Dekker).

This is a narrative you have to think about once it's over. Because, like a highway under construction, there're a lot of twists and turns. Curiously, the main part is largely devoid of action or even much violence. Instead, the writers and director Siodmak settle for atmospheric exposition, and I'm not sure if that helps or hinders. But either way, the unraveling is compelling. Then too, that final scene on the staircase is oddly reminiscent— in this case, Mary Astor's elevator going down at the end of The Maltese Falcon (1941) despite her emotional pleas.

Anyway, 40's noir hardly comes any purer, from spider woman to fall guy to $50 lighting bill. So if you don't mind a complex plot-line, this is one to catch.

You can scan thru many publications and they will tell you that Robert Siodmark's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's story The Killers is quintessential noir, and whilst I haven't seen enough of the perceived classics to make a sound judgement, I do understand why this one ranks so high.

Perfectly directed by Siodmark because it is washed with a moody ambiance that befits the script, the main players in the piece are bang on form to realise the mood and sombre tempo that makes the film a winner. The story basically revolves around Burt Lancaster's Swede Anderson who upon learning that hired killers are out to fulfil a contract on him, promptly stays horizontal on his bed and awaits his fate. We then follow Edmond O'Brien's insurance investigator Jim Reardon as (thru a series of flashbacks) he reconstructs Swede's life and what caused his demise.

The story encompasses one of film noir's most well known femme fatales in Ava Gardner's foxy Kitty Collins, and it's certainly the film's driving force as we observe her part in Swede's life, for better or worse as it were, but ultimately it's the classy framing of the film that marks it out as essential viewing. It's oppressive, it's almost stifling, and it's certainly story telling of the highest order, but mainly it just looks so fecking gorgeous you feel privileged to have been part of it. 9/10

'The Killers' was released on 1946. Back then, the film-noir genre was really popular. And in my opinion, this one is one of the best of this great cinematic genre, because it's told in a different way than most of its time. This movie is told through really smart flashbacks.

'The Killers' begins with two hit men arriving in a small town with only one objective: kill 'Swede' Anderson (Burt Lancaster). After this, a detective starts to investigate his death, by interviewing the people of the town. This is how he uncovers a murderous plot evolving multiple characters. This is one of those movies that really keeps you interesting and anxious on what's going to happen, ans when the plot reveals itself, it's really awesome how everything is around Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner). The story is well-told and aged really well.

The acting here is not superb, but it's not bad also. The movie is important because it's the first major role of Burt Lancaster, and the movie made him a star. It also features the always beautiful and mysterious Ava Gardner and the competent Edward O'Brien, in a interesting role.

I have never watched a Robert Siodmak picture before, and was surprised to see how well he directed this picture. The camera was always at an interesting and different angle, and there's one nice tracking shot in the middle of the movie. Along with the well-made soundtrack by Miklós Rózsa, and the also well-made cinematography by Elwood Bredell the mood in here couldn't be better.

Overral, this is a great film-noir movie, one of the best of its genre. It aged really well, most because of Ernest Hemingway's powerful story. It keeps you interested, with nice acting and directing.

8/10

Some intrepid critics have categorised 'Citizen Kane (1941)' as an early example of film noir, owing largely to its influential cinematography and flashback narrative structure. As though consciously in support of this assertion, Robert Siodmak's 'The Killers (1946)' – expanded from a 1927 short story by Ernest Hermingway – plays out precisely like a noirish retelling of Welles' film. After enigmatic ex-boxer Swede Andersen (Burt Lancaster) is gunned down by hired assassins in a small American town, insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) decides to piece together the man's past using fragmented testimony from those who once knew him. In doing so, he hopes to uncover the meaning behind the dead man's final words, "I did something wrong once." The life that Reardon discovers is one tinged with tragedy, regret and betrayal, revealing details of an audacious factory heist, a treacherous dame, and a double-cross to end all double-crosses. An archetypal noir, 'The Killers' caps an excellent year for Siodmak, who also released the Freudian psycho-thriller 'The Dark Mirror (1946).'

'The Killers' opens with a thrilling prologue that sees two hired thugs (William Conrad and B-noir stalwart Charles McGraw) harass the patrons at a small-town diner on their way to assassinate Swede Andersen. The characters' quickfire exchange of dialogue resembles something that Tarantino or the Coen brothers would have written decades later, only better, because screenwriter Anthony Veiller (with Richard Brooks and John Huston) reproduces the conversation from Hemingway's short story almost verbatim. After Andersen is unresistingly gunned down in his bed, the screenplay then expands upon the foundations laid down by the source material, using flashbacks to fill in the empty spaces at which Hemingway had only hinted. Veiller, whose work before WWII was dominated by romantic dramas, comedies and light mysteries like 'The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936),' appears to have been hardened by his work on Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" propaganda series, and the dark, cynical post-War tone he brings to Swede's tragic story is an ideal representation of the noir spirit.

Burt Lancaster shows promise in his screen debut, though the film's narrative structure does keep the audience distant from his character, an issue that Welles somehow avoided in 'Citizen Kane.' As the resident femme fatale, Ava Gardner never quite inspires the collective hatred garnered by Barbara Stanwyck in 'Double Indemnity (1944)' or Jane Greer in 'Out of the Past (1947),' but perhaps that speaks to her charms – that, despite her betrayal, we're still unwilling to treat her with due contempt. Good-guy Edmond O'Brien cheerfully and voyeuristically experiences the wretched life of a gangster through the intermediary flashback device – he ends the film with a cocky grin, like an audience-member emerging from a screening of the latest gangster thriller. Throughout this review, I've been making allusions to 'Citizen Kane,' but there's a very important difference between the two main characters: Charles Foster Kane had all the money in the world and got nothing out of it. Swede Andersen wasn't even that lucky; he didn't even get the money.