Saturday Night Cinema: The Killers

5

Tonight’s Saturday Night Cinema is one of the great film noir classics, The Killers, starring Burt Lancaster (in his stunning debut) and Ava Gardner, who was never more beautiful, IMAO. Ava, Ava, Ava.

According to a comment on the Times website, John Huston, who practically invented the genre in Sam Spade’s office, was an uncredited writer of The Killers. Yes, it is that good.

Nominated for four Oscars, “it’s one of the great films of disenchantment.”

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The Killers (1946) NYT Critics’ Pick

By BOSLEY CROWTHER
Published: August 29, 1946

Back in the gangster-glutted Twenties, Ernest Hemingway wrote a morbid tale about two gunmen waiting in a lunchroom for a man they were hired to kill. And while they relentlessly waited, the victim lay sweating in his room, knowing the gunmen were after him but too weary and resigned to move. That’s all the story told you—that a man was going to be killed. What for was deliberately unstated. Quite a fearful and fatalistic tale.

Now, in a film called “The Killers,” which was the title of the Hemingway piece, Mark Hellinger and Anthony Veiller are filling out the plot. That is, they are cleverly explaining, through a flashback reconstruction of the life of that man who lay sweating in his bedroom, why the gunmen were after him. And although it may not be precisely what Hemingway had in mind, it makes a taut and absorbing explanation as unreeled on the Winter Garden’s screen.

[…]

With Robert Siodmak’s restrained direction, a new actor, Burt Lancaster, gives a lanky and wistful imitation of a nice guy who’s wooed to his ruin. And Ava Gardner is sultry and sardonic as the lady who crosses him up. Edmond O’Brien plays the shrewd investigator in the usual cool and clipped detective style, Sam Levene is very good as a policeman and Albert Dekker makes a thoroughly nasty thug. Several other characters are sharply and colorfully played. The tempo is slow and metronomic, which makes for less excitement than suspense.

‘The Killers’
THE KILLERS, screen play by Anthony Veiller, based on a story by Ernest Hemingway; directed by Robert Siodmak; produced by Mark Hellinger for Universal. At the Winter Garden.
Swede . . . . . Burt Lancaster
Kitty Collins . . . . . Ava Gardner
Riordan . . . . . Edmond O’Brien
Colfax . . . . . Albert Dekker
Lieut. Lubinsky . . . . . Sam Levene
Dum Dum . . . . . Jack Lambert
Blinky . . . . . Jeff Corey
Kenyon . . . . . Donald McBride
Charleston . . . . . Vince Barnett
Packy . . . . . Charles D. Brown
Lilly . . . . . Virginia Christine
Nick Adams . . . . . Phil Brown
Jake . . . . . John Miljan
Queenie . . . . . Queenie Smith
Joe . . . . . Garry Owen
George . . . . . Harry Hayden
Sam . . . . . Bill Walker
The Killer . . . . . Charles McGraw
The Killer . . . . . William Conrad

Click link below for film:

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USCitizen
USCitizen
12 years ago

Great movie – Thanks for the post!

wb
wb
12 years ago

Also making his first credited film appearance in this pic was the late William Conrad, as one of the killers. To many, it was he, not James Arness, who was the definitive Matt Dillon, on the radio “Gunsmoke” (1952-61). To say nothing of his “Cannon” role, or his narration of the various incarnations of the “Rocky & Bullwinkle” cartoon series.
This version was also much preferable to the 1964 Lee Marvin/Angie Dickinson version, in which future California Governor and, later, President Ronald Reagan made his final acting appearance.

butterfly
butterfly
12 years ago

Damn double crossing dames.

i like this one
i like this one
12 years ago

i’ve got a life worth fighting for and there’s nothing in this world i wouldn’t do to keep it just the way it is….

butterfly
butterfly
12 years ago

And that “nothing” she did was easy. The mark was blinded by love.

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Thanks for sharing!