Né pour tuer

Here is another one of those films I didn't particularly care for the first time around, but gave it a second chance some years later and was rewarded. Now I love the film and am a Lawrence Tierney fan.

Tierney's intense character, his hot temper and insane paranoid jealousy are, well, fun to watch once you get to like this actor and his tough-guy roles. Tierney, in this film, would kill over the slightest thing that would suggest to him that he might be getting double crossed. Talk about a guy with mental problems!

Trevor was effective as the immoral woman who cared for money first, and everything else a distant second. As good as she and Tierney play off each other, for me, the most entertaining parts of the film were watching three of the supporting characters, played by Elisha Cook Jr., Walter Slezak and Esther Howard.

Cook played his normal film noir jittery-worried gangster accomplice and victim. He made a living playing these type of roles. Slezak was the Shakespeare/ Bible--quoting detective and Howard was a real hoot as an old lady trying to track down the killer of her young friend.

This is film noir in all its moodiness and hard attitude. If you find it a bit slow, please give it a second chance. These characters grow on you!

Born to Kill (1947)

"Has it occurred to you, neither of us looks like a scoundrel, do we?"

The smart, cutting lead female in this crime noir, Helen, played by Claire Trevor, is enough alone to make Born to Kill rise above. She's educated and calculating, far from the gutter but not at home with mere elegance and wealth, the things she's been trying to corner. The story is hers, luckily, because she's ultimately admirable, whatever her moral milkiness.

The whole thing starts with a shock, and then with a disturbing calm where all the pieces refuse to fit together. The lead male, Sam, played by Lawrence Tierney, is a ruthless, violent man with all the elegance and brains of a half-track. He's a perfect problem for Helen, and the movie only compounds and coils around a plot that never falters, whatever its complications. The detective (Walter Slezak) is too perfect in his delicate selfishness, and good old Elisha Cook Jr. is a surprising, and also perfect, good guy with too much tolerance due to his large heart.

It isn't a surprise that a good script and some talented actors are put together with such smart, fast panache by a young Robert Wise, more famous for little tidbits like West Side Story and Sound of Music. It ends up taking some astonishing twists, and some liberties with location shooting that are fabulous for 1947.

After all is said in done we are back with Claire Trevor's performance, which is large and nuanced, and very convincing. It's a good thing she has a lot to work with. A great film. Even the third time.

A repellent film noir, and I mean that as a compliment. It's remarkable for a number of things. The fact that it was directed by Robert Wise, a man who would go on to direct bland big-budget spectaculars (he'd already butchered THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS). The fact that it is so unpleasant and misanthropic - the good characters are pallid dupes; the bad ones have a vivid animalistic sexuality that drives the film; the moral force is a blowsy ineffectual drunk; the detective, figure of law and restoration of order, is cheerfully corrupt. The violence is quite sickening, even today; the misogyny is blatant, not narrative; Lawrence Tierney's masculinity is troubling, thrilling, sexually disruptive, and unclassifiable in Hollywood's history in its unredeemed nastiness and amorality. All this, and a rare Hollywood movie to deal with class.

In Reno, the cold-hearted Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) has just divorced from her husband and returns to the boarding house owned by Mrs. Kraft (Esther Howard) to pay her expenses and say goodbye to her and to Mrs. Kraft neighbor and best friend Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell) since she intends to return to San Francisco early in the morning. Helen goes to a casino to celebrate her divorce and glances at the gambler Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney) and Laury also goes to the casino with her boyfriend Danny Jaden (Tony Barrett). When Laury sees Sam, she sneaks with Danny since she had dated the gambler. Late night, Danny and Laury go to her house and Sam is waiting for them and kills the couple in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Helen sees Laury's dog on the street and brings it to the house. When she sees the bodies in the kitchen, she does not report to the police and heads to the train station, where she meets Sam. They travel together and Sam lodges in the Terrace Hotel. When Sam visits Helen, he leans that she lives in the mansion of her foster sister, the millionaire Georgia Staples (Audrey Long) and is the fiancée of the wealthy Fred Grover (Phillip Terry). The gold-digger Sam seduces Georgia and sooner they get married, but the calculating Helen feels horny for Sam. Meanwhile Mrs. Kraft hires the smart and sleazy private eyes Matthew Albert Arnett (Walter Slezak) to investigate the murder of her friend Laury.

"Born to Kill" is a film-noir that tells the story of a cold, greedy and calculating woman that feels desire for a ruthless killer. Claire Trevor performs an ambitious woman that is an iceberg and plans to marry for money with a good man that controls her bad instincts and sees her world collapsing when she meets the amoral killer Sam Wild. Marty 'Mart' Waterman (Elisha Cook Jr.) has a strange friendship with Sam and the fact that they share a double bad in the low-budget hotel may give a hint that they have a homosexual relationship. Walter Slezak has also a great performance in the role of a sleazy character. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Nascido para Matar" ("Born to Kill")

Truly one of the most sinister of RKO's hardcore noirs, Born to Kill is as close to real nihilism as a Hollywood studio picture was likely to come. The only remotely sympathetic characters are a pair of dupes and an old drunk, everyone who's got anything on the ball is corrupt and ruthless.

Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney) is a homme fatal, as attractive yet deadly to women as any of a dozen femmes fatal in other films are to men. Unable to resist his glowering masculine wiles is Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) who is nearly as black-hearted as he is. All the other characters circle around them like moths around a flame. As is to be expected money, murder, and lust all have their parts to play.

To be honest Lawrence Tierney's performance is fairly one dimensional, but it is a hell of a dimension. He menaces, scowls, and swaggers through the picture, always ready to attack, like an alley cat that's found it's way inside. His character's bluntness is played for maximum effect, wisely since Tierney is no Bogart. He does manage some good, direct, lines, in response to Trevor's, "Oh, I wouldn't say that...," he tightens his lips and spits out, "No. You wouldn't say it, but that's how it is." With Tierney turning up the heat, it's up to Claire Trevor to sweat. She rides the moral see-saw much like Fred MacMurray reacting to Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. Even without the benefit of a voice-over she pulls it off quite well, convincingly playing a woman caught between her safe, malleable (and rich) fiancée and the exciting but untamed Wilde.

There are three strong supporting performances. Elisha Cook, Jr. is Marty Waterman, Sam's "friend" who does his best to keep the lid on the pot (and to deliver most of the lines in their shared scenes). Esther Howard is Mrs. Kraft, a boardinghouse owner who is important to the plot. Especially good is Walter Slezak as the genteel detective Arnett.

Born to Kill does have a few flaws, the pacing is somewhat questionable and several of the important characters are either missing or blindingly stupid throughout most of the picture. But on the whole Tierney, Trevor, and the others deliver and there's enough tension to keep things interesting. The film is based on a novel 'Deadlier Than the Male' but given Tierney's looks and personality that title doesn't truly seem to fit the movie, it's a rare case of the man luring the woman to her doom.