Kill or Be Killed

This film lost me when all the guys appeared for dinner in this mansion stuck in the middle of the jungle wearing white dinner jackets and ties while the woman of the house tinkered away on the grand piano. A bit out of place you might say. Also out of place was Lawrence Tierney in a role more suited to Cary Grant than the king of the tough guys. Lawrence excels as a gangster , why they tried to sell him off as a good guy defies logic!

Engineer Robert Warren (Lawrence Tierney) on assignment in Brazil, is set up for a murder when he discovers a client dead in his office and he is discovered standing over the body. After giving chase to the real killer and trying to elude the police until he can prove his innocence, Warren ends up hiding on a steam boat heading into the Amazon. Along the way he becomes involved with an unhappily married woman, her husband and his business partner (Marissa O'Brien, Rudolph Anders, George Coulouris) while trying to sort out the details of the crime.

The role is a bit of a departure from the usual for Tierney. Here he is cast as the man in peril. An innocent victim who through none of his own doing is caught up in the crossfire. As such Tierney does a serviceable job but clearly this type of role wasn't his long suit. Marissa O'Brien as Tierney's love interest gives us more disbelief to suspend as a concert pianist who for some reason moves to the remote jungle with her near psychotic husband who she doesn't love. To nobody's amazement things don't go well.

The movie is a fair to middling, tropical crime drama. While at the start the movie hints of a fast paced action, mystery / crime flick, it slowly chokes down to more sluggish melodrama and an anti-climatic resolution with little explanation of the crime itself. Lawrence Tierney fans are likely to be disappointed and there isn't enough beef on the bones of the story to build much interest otherwise.

A surprisingly nondescript effort for a movie titled 'Kill or Be Killed' with Lawrence Tierney.

Wrongly accused of murder, Robert Warren (Lawrence Tierney) must elude capture while trying to track down the real killer. Along the way, Warren is assisted by the beautiful Maria Marek (Marissa O'Brien), leading to even more trouble for Warren. Maria's jealous husband (Rudolph Anders) and his henchman (George Coulouris) cause big problems.

When the action switches to the jungle, things get even more interesting.

A very entertaining film, KILL OR BE KILLED is filled with drama, thrills, and romance. One memorable chase scene takes us through some spectacular Portuguese locations!

Tierney is fantastic in his hunted role!...

I am a big fan of Lawrence Tierney and I look for all his films whenever I have a few hours to kill. In this film, Tierney is a protagonist rather than a cold-blooded killer, like he was in Born to Kill. The characters in this film are far less seedy and sleazy as well. The major weakness of the film is the music; it appears as if the film was hijacked by the people responsible for the music soundtrack. Instead of having foreboding music similar to that in Psycho, the composers for this sound track try to recreate The Sound of Music. "The River with Killer Fish is alive with the sound of music". would have been lyrics they might have created to further ruin what was a decent story line. The music is terribly overbearing and overwhelms the characters and the plot at times. Fortunately, Tierney saves us from this version of The Producers by sticking to his hard guy pesonna. Lesson: dont let music ruin your film.

I am not a fan of Lawrence Tierney's but because he did noirs, my favorite genre, I watch him.

Tierney plays Robert Warren, an engineer working in Brazil. In an attempt to collect money, he walks into a bar owner's office just as the man has been killed. The killer escapes. Thinking Warren did it, the police chase him.

He manages to board a ship going to the Amazon. A concert pianist on board Maria (Marissa O'Brien) helps him hide. Once off the ship, he gets a job at a plantation where the workers are being exploited. Their boss is Maria's husband, Gregory (Rudolph Anders).

Gregory has an associate, Victor (George Coulouris) who does all his dirty work. Victor recognizes Robert from the bar. Realizing he was at the scene of the murder, Robert becomes his assignment. In the meantime, Robert and Maria have fallen in love. So Victor and Gregory really aren't happy with him.

This is an okay film. Boy have times changed. Tierney states in this film that he's 32. He was, though you'd believe looking at him by today's standards that he's 55. In this film he plays a hero, which was unusual for him.

Some scenes shot in Lisbon.

People are always saying if Tierney hadn't been such a bad boy off the screen, he could have done this and that in films. Frankly I've never seen the attraction, though occasionally he says a line in something besides a monotone.