The Killers (1946)

Simply Perfect

Crappy film

Brilliant and touching

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This opens atmospherically, then leads into a plot overcooked by several hours. Well filmed in black and white of course, it has a beautiful look for much of its running time. Edmond O'Brien who should be named as the lead as he has the most screen time and carries us along the plot is good, no better, Burt Lancaster in his first screen role is wooden or overacting, Ava Gardner is similarly poor and the rest of the cast just pass muster. Very overrated. If you want great noir try Murder My Sweet, This Gun For Hire or The Maltese Falcon, but this'll pass the time for you while looking good; no better than that.

Fantastic first twenty minutes, great performance from Burt Lancaster in his first role and fine ending. But there is a problem. From the very start, pre-credit sequence even, there a deep black shadows and ominous shapes and once in the diner there is sharp dialogue to match. Based upon a Hemingway story and all is most promising even if we loose our star so early on. But Hemingway only wrote a short story. From here on in the film makers had to improvise a back story, reputedly mainly the work of John Huston the expansion is formed of flashbacks. Lots of them, probably a dozen and there is a chance of us losing interest. We get more Lancaster and Ava Gardner but it is Edmond O'Brien who is expected to carry the film and he does not have the required charisma. Nor the required dialogue. It is a tightly enough told tale but there are lapses in believability and by the end, I didn't really care.

Regarding the latter, that is saying quite a lot seeing as Ernest Hemingway's work is very difficult to adapt and has met very mixed success on film. What is remarkable about The Killers is how it takes a very good and remarkably powerful short story and expands further on it, one of the few Hemingway adaptations to be just as good as its source material and at times be even better than it.This said it is a fabulous film too on its own terms, and is quintessential film noir, audacious, taut, exciting and suspenseful when it could have been overblown, overwrought or dull if done wrongly. And as much as I did like the 1964 remake, mostly because of Lee Marvin, the 1946 original is the far superior film, with an obvious difference for the better being the production values. The remake was hurt by its rather rushed and cheap made-for-TV look, whereas the production values is one of the strongest things about this version, with its crisp photography, brilliantly atmosphere production design influenced by Edward Hopper and shadowy lighting, that bring such an effective noir-ish atmosphere, the opening scene is particularly striking in this regard.Miklos Rozsa's music here is one of his most ominous and stirringly orchestrated, used sparingly but with palpable effect, really allowing the atmosphere to speak and enhancing it even further when it features. So good in fact, that it was used again for the TV series Dragnet. Robert Siodmak's expertly direction, which maintains a powerfully bleak tone throughout, and a cracking screenplay are further great things, as is a story that is tightly paced and excitingly taut with tons of suspense and intrigue and intricately done and never confusing flashbacks, not getting dull for a minute. This viewer for one was riveted throughout and never found herself confused.Strong acting also helps, with Burt Lancaster thoroughly convincing in his first starring role, his best moments in fact are stunning, and Ava Gardner in the femme fatale role is wonderfully beautiful, classy and mysterious. Albert Dekker and Edmund O' Brien are the standouts in support, Dekker is splendidly larcenous and O'Brien drives the investigation with such taut aplomb. Charles McGraw and William Conrad are chilling too, and you wish the film developed their characters just a little more. While the characters are not the most well-developed, they are still interesting and carry the narrative without any annoyances or irrelevance.All in all, superior version and quintessential film noir in its own right. 10/10 Bethany Cox

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.